Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

When two lovebirds decided to tie the nuptial knot last Saturday, little did they know that the day will turn disastrous and bring them pain and anxiety. The newly married couple’s day took a sad twist when the bridegroom, Isaac Botwe, collapsed shortly after the wedding ceremony, and the vehicle conveying him to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital knocked down and killed a pregnant woman and her six-year-old son. The incident has resulted in the arrest of the driver of the vehicle, Joseph Agyare. According to the story, confirmed by Superintendent of Police, Mr Peter A.K. Ayirezang, the Mamprobi District Police Commander, around 6 p.m. on August 25, 2012, the driver was driving a Mercedes Benz saloon car with registration number GT 9291 U from Laterbiokorshie towards Korle Bu carrying his friend, Botwe. Mr Ayirezang said Agyare, who was rushing Botwe to the hospital, upon reaching a section of the road at Mamprobi Sempe, knocked down a 35-year-old woman, Beatrice Asiedu,...

National records at the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) continue to deteriorate because of poor facilities. With the onset of the rains, signs of leakage are visible, making the keeping of the records under the required temperature difficult. Volumes of documents are, therefore, at the mercy of the weather. The archives serve as a research centre where scores of people go in search of information daily.  Meanwhile, many believe that the archives could use its volumes of documents to generate enough funds from the researchers to maintain the building. In January this  year,  facilities and conditions at PRAAD were published by graphic.com.gh, but seven months after the publication, virtually nothing has been done to save the national documents. An insider told graphic.com.gh that nothing had changed in the wake of public concern over the state of PRAAD which holds in its belly volumes of documents of national interest. The...

A Deputy Minister of Energy, Mr Inusah Fuseini, says Ghanaians must hold Mr Kwadwo Mpiani and Prof Mike Oquaye accountable for the $1.3 million Isofoton judgement debt hanging on the country’s neck. According to him, both Mr Mpiani, a former Chief of Staff and Prof Oquaye, a former Minister of Energy in the Kufour administration, acted with impunity in the abrogation of the Isofoton S.A. contract to provide solar rural electrification under a Ghana-Spain protocol. Mr Mpiani has been singled out for blame in the latest revelation in the series of judgement debts currently dominating public discourse, but in the latest twist to the Isofoton issue, Prof Oquaye is also being accused. The company is seeking damages amounting to $1.3 million following a breach of its contract with the ministries of Agriculture and Energy under the Kufour regime. Mr Fuseini who was addressing the media in Accra said “people must take responsibility for their actions. It is not just enough tod...

THE Catholic Archdiocese of Accra has launched its 120th anniversary, with a pledge to look back at the successes and failures of its mission over the past 120 years. The church also launched a logo competition for the anniversary. It is open to young people under 25 years. The year-long anniversary, which starts on December 2, 2012, will reach its climax on November 24, 2013 with a massive congregation of members of the archdiocese at the Independence Square in Accra. The celebration will be on the theme: “120 years of Catholic Mission: Honouring the Past, Celebrating the Present, Building the Future”. The Accra Archdiocese covers the entire Greater Accra Region and some parts of the Volta Region. It currently has 21 parishes and 33 rectorates. Launching the anniversary, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, the Most Rev Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle, said the period was a moment for the church to reflect on the many blessings that God had showered on it in Accra and its en...

Ghana is implementing a vessel traffic management and information system (VTMIS) to provide electronic surveillance and monitoring of the entire coast of the country. This is to prevent potential risk of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas. The system, according to the Deputy Minister of Transport, Ms Dzifa A. Attivor, was to serve the needs of the maritime industry by becoming a centre for information gathering and sharing to alert industry players to potential hot spots. The deputy minister made this known at the 10th meeting of the Board of Governors of the Regional Maritime University (RMU) in Accra last Friday. The meeting was used by the five-member countries of the RMU, currently chaired by The Gambia, to take stock of the performance of the University, discuss critical matters and take decisions that would further enhance its growth and development. The Ghana Maritime Authority last year signed a contract with EL TEL Corporation Network based in Finland...

A Coalition of civil society organisations has called on the government to make the draft Petroleum Revenue Management Bill public now, just as it did in the case of the Local Content Policy. The coalition, made up of Publish What You Pay (PWYP), Ghana, the Ghana Research and Advocacy Organisations Network, Coalition on Human Rights Oil and Gas, and the Kumasi Institute of Technology and Environment (KITE), said the publication of the document would ensure that Ghanaians contributed effectively to the ongoing discussions and consultations on the bill. Addressing a press conference in Accra last Thursday, the PWYP National Oil and Gas Co-ordinator, Mr Mohammed Amin Adam, said although a draft policy on petroleum revenue management had been developed, the inability of the government to publish or circulate the document for public scrutiny to encourage people to make informed contributions during consultations made the ongoing consultations speculative without any strong foundation...

MEMBERS of the Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church at Mamprobi in Accra yesterday received a rude shock when they turned up for worship only to find the sanctity of their church desecrated with human excreta and offensive posters by unknown persons. The act was said to have been carried out at 3 a.m. in protest against some policies and demands of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, the Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle, who was expected at the church for a confirmation service. The first church service, which was to begin at 7 a.m., was delayed, as the members had to wait for the mess and the strong stench which filled the air to be cleansed. The service eventually took place without any incident. When the area was tidied up, normal service was held and Archbishop Palmer-Buckle was on hand for the confirmation which was done during the second service. In his sermon, the Archbishop made a brief reference to the incident and promised that the issue would be dealt with by the ...

THE Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev Prof. Emmanuel Martey, says the church has a crucial role to play in championing accountability and transparency in the country’s emerging oil and gas industry. He said the Presbyterian Church would lead the crusade against corruption and indiscipline in order to promote the country’s development agenda. He noted that the church did not frown on wealth but  it must be properly acquired and used, adding that it was not simply a matter of telling people not to be corrupt; it should also be about telling people not to corrupt others.  Rev  Martey, who was delivering  the church’s annual Christmas goodwill message, said even though the oil find was a blessing, the nation must guard against mismanaging the resources in order to avoid treading the ‘oil curse’ path of other oil-rich countries in Africa. “The mistakes of other nations have to guide us in managing our oil wealth to ensure that we derive benefits ...

THE Ministry of Trade and Industry has outlined various activities in its efforts to ensure value addition to Ghanaian raw materials through knowledge transfer and innovation. The activities have been captured in the ministry’s Trade Sector Support Programme (TSSP), which is designed to implement the Ghana Trade Policy and deliver rapid and strategic expansion of the country’s productive base. The TSSP is targeted at a technological improvement programme in which existing industries would be retooled. A Technological Innovation Centre (TIC), which will use the state-of-the-art technology to manufacture capital goods such as parts and components of industrial machinery and equipment for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), will also be established. The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr John Gyetuah, made this known at the African Knowledge Transfer Partnership (AKTP) business forum, which was on the theme: “Successes of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships in Ghana”. M...

ONE hundred and forty lifeguards and boat operators plying the Volta Lake last Friday graduated from a life-saving skills training programme. The trainees, made up of 107 lifeguards and 31 boat operators drawn from the Volta, Eastern, Northern, Brong Ahafo, Greater Accra and Western regions, underwent the two-week intensive course at the Tema Eastern Naval Base.  A section of the trainees in a jubilant mood    To equip the participants with the needed skills to discharge their duties and contribute to safety on the Volta Lake, they were taken through subjects such as boat work, survival at sea, life-saving, communication, first aid and fire fighting. They also received training in physical training and drill to improve fitness and teamwork. The course forms part of interventions under the Volta Lake Transport Enhancement Programme (VLTEP) rolled out by Zoil Services Limited, in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport. Since its inception, about 300 lifeguards h...

THE Children Emergency Ward of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) has been closed down indefinitely, following the outbreak of a bacterial infection known as Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) in the ward. Authorities of the hospital told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that so far five cases had been diagnosed among children on admission at the ward for which they were being treated. The MRSA is a type of "staph" bacteria which is resistant to many antibiotics. The staph bacteria, like other kinds of bacteria, normally live on the skin and in the nose, usually without causing problems. However, MRSA infections are more difficult to treat than ordinary staph infections because the strains of the MRSA do not respond well to many common antibiotics used to kill bacteria. Experts say when methicillin and other antibiotics do not kill the bacteria causing an infection, it becomes harder to get rid of that infection. The MRSA, like all staph ba...

The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) is to raise about $230 million this year from local and international financial markets to invest in the country’s electrical energy infrastructure. Under the initiative, which feeds into its long-term capital investment plan, GRIDCo will receive 80 million euros from French companies Coface Group and Societe Generale, in partnership with the SG-SSB Bank. Other collaborators are Korea’s EXIM Bank, which is contributing $70 million, the Cal Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank, which are providing $13 million and $ 25 million, respectively. The Chief Executive Officer of GRIDCo, Mr Charles A. Darku, told the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of its second annual general meeting (AGM) in Accra yesterday that the French support would be used to finance a project to close the northern loop of the transmission network from Tumu through Han to Wa. The Korean funds, on the other hand, would be used to build a line from the Aboadze Thermal Plant thro...

The Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) has maintained its dominance of the media landscape by sweeping eight awards announced by the Ghana Journalists Association Monday. While the Daily Graphic was nominated for an institutional award, seven journalists within the fold of the GCGL were also selected for the awards ceremony slated for September 9, 2011 at the Banquet Hall of the State House in Accra. The nominees from the GCGL are as follows: Lucy Adoma Yeboah/Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho for a joint award, Kofi Yeboah, Charles Benoni Okine, Naa Lamiley Bentil, William Asiedu ( The Mirror ) and Vicky Wereko-Andoh, a columnist of the Daily Graphic. Another award won by journalists of the GCGL was labelled as Team Graphic because the article was written by five journalists. They are Kofi Yeboah, Emmanuel Bonney, Victor Kwawukume, Vincent Amenueveve and Nana Konadu Agyeman. Other award winners from the various media houses include: last year’s Journalist of the Year, Sa...

The Management of Shoprite, last Friday put smiles on the faces of children supported by  OrphanAid Africa, a non- governmental organisation (NGO) that specialises in rescuing children from orphanages and settling them with their families, when it presented a cheque for GHC 10,000 to the organisaion. The money was realized from donations made by customers of the company and is expected to compliment the effort of OrphanAid to finance its activities. Presenting the cheque, the Marketing Manager of Shoprite, Mr Kwame Larbi-Siaw, , said the amount was raised through GH¢1.00 donations   made by customers to support the project. He said  the donation was part of the company’s corporate social responsibility to support the needs of underprivileged children. He  pledged the company’s support for OrphanAid saying  the donation would be made annual affair and hoped that it would a long way towards financing the activities of the organisation. Blakk Rasta, ...

Compassion Outreach International, a faith-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), has organised an entrepreneurship training programme for final-year junior high school students of the Believers International School. The one-day training workshop, which involved a lecture on developing entrepreneurial minds, was to help provide the students with entrepreneurship training. Speaking during the programme, the  Co-ordinator of Projects for the NGO, Mr Kofi Opoku Ababio, urged the students to adopt positive attitudes towards job creation and not job seeking. He defined entrepreneurship as a mindset and art of finding creative and profitable solutions to problems. “Every successful entrepreneur has been someone who has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution before somebody else did,” he explained. Explaining who an entrepreneur was, Mr Ababio said “an entrepreneur is a person who habitually creates and innovates to build something of recognised value aro...

TWO human right groups have called on the Attorney-General to halt any move for an out-of-court settlement in the case of three human traffickers pending before an Accra Circuit Court. According to Child Rights International (CRI) and the Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), attempts by the accused persons — Fati Abubakari, Memuna Abubakari and Zinabu Abubakari — to compensate 10 victims of their act for an  out-of-court settlement were unacceptable. The three accused persons have been charged with 13 counts of conspiracy and human trafficking which violate sections 1 and 2 of the Human Trafficking Act 2005 (Act 694) and Section 23  of the Criminal Code, while Zinabu is facing an additional charge of procuring one of the victims from her matrimonial home in Nantom in Northern Region to Lagos in Nigeria for prostitution. According to the facts of the case, the accused persons have allegedly been trafficking young girls from the Northern Region en route to Nigeria through ...

The management of Capital Builders’ Network (CBNet) Ltd, a non-bank financial institution, has stated that contrary to media reports, it has not breached any of Ghana’s financial regulations in its operations. “We maintain that we have done all the right things in the setting up and operations of our Susu Nnoboa,” the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Mr Yaw Diowuso-Agyeman, said at a press conference in Accra yesterday. He, therefore, appealed to regulators of the banking sector, especially the Bank of Ghana (BoG), to be just and fair to the company in their quest to streamline operations in the sector. Mr Diowuso-Agyeman said the company was devastated by reports that even before concluding its investigations into allegations of impropriety against the company, the BoG had “put out a damning notice about CBNet, cautioning banks, non-financial institutions and the general public about their dealings with the company”. He said ever since the Daily Graphic publicatio...

The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev Prof. Emmanuel Martey, says the church has a crucial role to play in championing accountability and transparency in the country’s emerging oil and gas industry. He said the Presbyterian Church would lead the crusade against corruption and indiscipline in order to promote the country’s development agenda. He noted that the church did not frown on wealth but  it must be properly acquired and used, adding that it was not simply a matter of telling people not to be corrupt; it should also be about telling people not to corrupt others.  Rev  Martey, who was delivering  the church’s annual Christmas goodwill message, said even though the oil find was a blessing, the nation must guard against mismanaging the resources in order to avoid treading the ‘oil curse’ path of other oil-rich countries in Africa. “The mistakes of other nations have to guide us in managing our oil wealth to ensure that we derive benefits t...

A three-day computer skills upgrading training workshop aimed at providing practical experience for Japan Overseas Co-operation Volunteers (JOCV) and their Ghanaian counterparts opened in Accra today (Tuesday). The training programme which brought together 26 participants from all over the country also has the objective of providing the participants with new rudiments of diagnosing and repairing computer faults which are commonly found in their daily work situations. The workshop was under the auspices of the Electronics Sub-committee of the JOCV. Even with new generation of computers flooding the market, a lot of old computers with different operating systems are still in use in schools and offices across the country. The blending of old and new computers are also common in most organisations, a situation that creates maintenance and compatibility problems for technicians. The workshop was, therefore, to address the computer  knowledge defiecies that impede the growth of...

THREE thousand second-hand gas cylinders initially registered at the Tema Port as transit goods to Burkina Faso were impounded by the Special Operations Unit (SOU) of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) yesterday. The goods were impounded when a surveillance team of the unit reported that the trucks had diverted their course and were unloading the goods at Kasoa-Amanfrom. Three trucks, with registration numbers AS 9989 P, GT 6057 C and GT 3984 B, carrying the cylinders, which are banned in Ghana, have also been impounded. The goods, which had been at the Tema Port for two weeks, had attracted the attention of the SOU since transit goods  spend less time at the port. Narrating events leading to the confiscation of the goods to the Daily Graphic, the Co-ordinator of the SOU, Mr Abudu Nelson, said the unit received a tip-off from an informant at the port that some goods had been loaded onto some trucks deep in the night. He said the SOU then placed its surveill...