Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

The Accra Diamond and Accra Golden Lions clubs have installed new officers for the 2010-2011 Lionistic year, with a pledge by the clubs to continue their services to humanity. Lions Clubs International is the world’s largest service club organisation with 45,000 clubs in more than 200 countries. In Ghana, the club has been at the forefront of glaucoma eradication, in addition to several community development projects across the country. The executive of the Accra Diamond Lions Club is led by Lion Mavis Mensah as President, while Lion Margaret Akyea took the mantle of leadership from Lion Abigail Amoah as President of the Accra Golden Lions Club. The Chairperson of Zone 162, Lion Helen Obeng, who inducted the new officers into office, advised them to adhere to the tenets and principles of the clubs in the discharge of their duties. The immediate past President of the Accra Golden Lions Club, Lion Amoah, said it was time for members of the club to reaffirm their commitment to humani...

    Billboards are,  perhaps, the most popular form of outdoor advertising in the country. But their indiscriminate mounting which has become a blot on some parts of the  country's  landscape. Currently, question as to who qualifies to  regulate the industry has become a tussle between the Advertising Association of Ghana (AAG), and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).        The AMA in a statement dated June 16, 2010, and  signed by its Head of Public Affairs , Mr James Dorgbetor, warned that it would embark on a massive removal of authorised  billboards after a 30-day grace period which is from June 22 to July 22 , if  the advertising agencies fail to identify the boards with their company names.        According to the statement,  the proliferation of unidentified and authorised bill boards and sign boards within the metropolis,  in most cases,  compromise...

A RESCUE team from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) is searching for three children and a nursing mother believed to have drowned in flood waters at Nmai Dzorn in the Adentan Municipality, following yesterday’s heavy downpour. Two of the children were said to be escaping with their mother from their flooded room when they were swept away,while the last victim was said to be alone at  home and got drowned                                        when he attempted to escape. An official of NADMO, Mr Azuma Besore, confirmed the casualties to the Daily Graphic and explained that NADMO’s response team had been called to contain the situation by helping  all affected persons. The floods were also said to have swept away some vehicles and property in Tema, Ashaiman an...

THE decision of a former employee of  the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to illegally reconnect electricity to a friend’s house during a black out last Friday, has led to his death.       The incident, which happened at  Maamobi in Accra had the deceased, 42-year-old Godwin Semeko, electrocuted on the electrical pole while  attempting  to reconnect power supply to one Issah whose house experienced a power outage.      Confirming the incident to the Daily Graphic  on Monday, the Crime Officer at the Kotobabi Police Station, ASP John Coffie, stated that a sister of the deceased, Ms Joyce Semeko, in the company of the Assembly member of the Kwaotsuru Electoral Area, Hajia Damata Sulemana, reported the incident to the Police.       According to the story, Godwin who was an employee of Printex Limited had returned from work and complained of not feeling too well.     ...

STRUCTURES belonging to squartters of Abuja, one of the slums in the Central Business District of Accra, were reduced to a pile of rubble at the behest of a landowner on the order of an Accra Circuit Court. The four-hour exercise which began at 8.00am yesterday, under the protection of armed policemen saw a dozer ploughing through the wooded structures while angry squatters looked on. The squarters accused the Ghana Railway Company Limited (GRCL), of collecting ground rent from them only to have their structures demolished. A man who claimed to be the brother of the purported owner of the land, one Mr Owusu, said his brother leased the land from the GRCL and had been trying to eject the squatters for quite a while. “The matter went to court and the ejection order was given,” he said. When the Daily Graphic arrived on the scene a bulldozer was clearing  the debris and levelling the ground while some of the owners of the demolished structures were seen salvaging what was left ...

SOME years back in Ghana, any discussion related to boxing could not end without reference to “Azumah Vs Gomez”. “Azumah Vs Gomez” aptly captured an uncompromising pugilistic brush between legendary Ghanaian boxer, Azumah Nelson, and Puerto Rican Wilfredo Gomez. Gomez was the victim of a flurry of punches by Azumah who knocked him out in 11 exciting rounds in San Juan on December 8, 1984. Before Azumah’s feat, history has it that the late Eddy Blay, Clement Quartey, Sule Shitu, Roy Ankrah, D. K. Poison, and many other unsung heroes of Ghana boxing were thorns in the flesh of other boxers across the world, and won laurels for the country. The first Ghanaian medal (a bronze) in any sport did not come through the ‘global leather’ — football — but rather through the effort of a high jumper, Robert Kotei, at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1958. Kotei marched on to become a Chief of Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF). However, the first medal (silver) in the Olympic Game...

THE usual interpretations and meanings  given to the positions of candidates on ballot papers were not absent when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) balloted  the positions of candidates for the upcoming flagbearership race with Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng taking the top slot. The process which was supervised by a representative of the Electoral Commission, Mr Amos Neequaye, had Mr Isaac Osei, the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Subin and former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom taking the second slot, Mr John Kwame Koduah, a Kumasi-based legal practitioner took the third place while the 2008 flagbearer rivals Mr Alan Kyerematen, and Nana Addo Dankwa, took the fourth and fifth positions respectively. The balloting which  took two rounds was to determine the positions of the aspirants on the ballot paper and represented the final hurdle towards the election of the party’s flagbearer for the 2012 general elections. The process which took place at the NPP Headquarte...

Representatives of key anti-corruption institutions have begun exchanging information and intelligence on checking corruption and fighting crime in the country. A forum to facilitate the process was  launched in Accra onWednesday. Known as the “Exchange of Information Forum,” it is expected to improve the systems for fighting against corruption and crime, increase co-ordination and information flow among key accountability institutions. It also seeks to provide a systemic basis for clarifying mandates and also help to avoid mandate overlaps, conflicts and minimise the potential duplication of efforts in the execution of mandates among the member institutions. The forum, which is the brain-child of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), and is open to all accountability institutions. Currently it has the Commission of Human Right and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), the Judicial Service, the Criminal Investig...

AN alleged miscommunication between a railway traffic warden and an Nsawam-bound train leaving Kantamanto in Accra resulted in the train crashing with a Metro Mass Transit bus on the Graphic Road yesterday. The incident, which took place about 5:40 p.m., resulted in injury to the driver of the bus and extensive damage to the bus and aggravated the traffic situation on the Graphic Road. An eyewitness told the Daily Graphic that even though the train had signalled the traffic warden by horning, the warden did not react swiftly enough to close the road to vehicles. He said the bus, which was full of passengers, screeched to a halt very close to the railway tracks where it was hit by the train. The warden, however, denied not having acted on time. According to him, when he heard the signal from the train, the Metro bus was already too close to the tracks. “I tried to wave him to stop because the bus was already under the barrier used in blocking the road during emergency situations bu...

The Executive Director of the Justice and Human Rights Institute, Prof Ken A. Attafuah, has called on political parties in the country to re-orient and educate their supporters to forgo violence in pursuit of what they consider as their share of the spoils of electoral victory. He said while some foot soldiers exemplify the cardinal virtues of valour, temperate character and foresight, the behaviour of yet many others demonstrated blind loyalty to party to the detriment of the national good or fairness to the individual. Prof Attafuah was speaking at a national conference organised by the Centre for Freedom and Accuracy (CFA), a non-governmental media organisation, dedicated to the promotion and defence of free enterprise in Ghana. The conference which was under the theme: “Managing Foot soldiers and Party Loyalists for a sustainable Democracy and effective development,” was to discuss issues relating to foot soldiers and party loyalists and how such matters could affect the country...

What would have been a normal routine for a senior Daily Graphic photographer at the Family Tribunal in Accra turned into a nightmare when he was attacked by an alleged fraud suspect and also detained for hours in protective custody. Narrating his ordeal, Mr Rockson Asmah, the photographer, said he was on the premises to cover an assignment when he heard someone shouting, “Where is the Graphic man let him come and snap me.” He said when he got closer to take  shots, a woman jumped from the crowd and held onto his camera and verbally abused him. He said  the ensuing commotion attracted the attention of a group of police officers who restrained the woman and her relatives from allegedly attempting to physically assault him. Mr Asmah said a few minutes later, a presiding judge, who was hearing the woman’s case, ordered that he (Mr Asmah) and the woman be brought to her chambers. He said the judge directed that the photographs of the suspect be deleted and asked for an indepe...

The Ministry of Health is to introduce a malaria self-test kit into the country’s health care  system in a move to promote the early detection of malaria cases. The  EZ-Trust kit, a potable disposable device, can be used at home to detect malaria. At a meeting to introduce the product to the Minister of Health, Dr Benjamin Kunbour,  the Managing Director of TG Medicals from South Africa, Mr Theo J. Roelofsz Jnr, indicated that the product had been evaluated and approved by laboratories world-wide including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He said the test kit had become necessary in order to reduce the time people spent in hospital. “There is no need to wait for days for laboratory results anymore.  With the test-kit, people will be able to perform a quick and accurate test in the comfort of their own homes, ” he said. The company also introduced to the minister, two other products - an HIV h...

Left:The baby boy after he was untied from the polythene bag .  Right:The baby boy now on admission at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. A tale of a mother’s cruelty (or temporary insanity) and the survival instinct of a newborn baby has sent the Kotobabi Police and residents of Mamobi in Accra, on a massive hunt for a nursing mother who slashed the scrotum of her newly delivered baby and abandoned him in a tied polythene bag. Confirming the strange incident to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Crime Officer of the Kotobabi Police Station, ASP John Coffie, said the incident was brought to the attention of the police by a security man of the Mother and Child Community Development Centre, a kindergarten at Mamobi. According to the story, Yaw Zakari, the security man, reported to work at about 5.30 a.m. last Thursday and during a routine inspection, he found something struggling in a plastic bag behind the school compound. Alarmed by the spectacle and suspectin...

AN Accra Circuit Court has remanded six persons in prison custody for their alleged involvement in acts of forgery and embezzlement which have undermined the operations of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the Jomoro and Mporhor Wassa East districts of the Western Region. The accused persons involved in the Jomoro District malfeasance, Cynthia Bayejena and Grace Danso, nurses at the Tikobo No. 2, and Ahobre No. 2 Health Centres, respectively; John K. Nyamekeh, a dispensing chemist; David Nelson, a chemical seller and NHIS service provider, and Emmanuel Zakaria, a driver at the Half Assini Hospital, were each charged with three counts of forgery of official documents, conspiracy and stealing, contrary to Section 158 of Act 29/60. The sixth accused person, John Aryeh, a chemical seller at Mpohor, was charged with uttering forged document and stealing GH¢14,000 from the NHIS. Counsel for the accused persons, Mr George Asamaney, had prayed the court to grant the accu...

A former Chief of Staff, Nana Ato Dadzie, has called for a ceiling to be placed on the number of ministers and deputy ministers that can be appointed by the President. Dadzie, who served in the Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) Administration, observed that although a limitation on the number of ministers might pose challenges to the country’s constitutional governance, the present “carte blanche, all bills paid, open-cheque approach may be inappropriate” as it burdened the President with all sorts of pressures. Dadzie was making a presentation entitled “The absence of a ceiling on the number of ministries created and the number of ministers appointed” at a forum organised in Accra by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). The discussion attracted current and former Ministers of State, Members of Parliament (MPs), leaders of political parties, members of the Bar and academia and formed part of IEA’s Constitutional Review Programme, which involves research and advo...

The Sene MP- Felix Twumasi-Appiah The Accra Circuit Court has directed the police to take steps to formally charge the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sene, Mr Felix Twumasi-Appiah, for fraud, saying parliamentary immunity did not mean he could not answer charges against him. The court’s directive yesterday, followed a statement by counsel for Mr Twumasi-Appiah that the MP could not make an appearance in court because of his involvement in parliamentary duties. Counsel also stated that his client had not been formally charged with the offence by the police. The court, presided over by Mr Justice D. E. K. Daketsey, also ordered the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to release, with immediate effect, the passport of Huan Carlos, the MP’s accomplice, to enable him to attend to his son who is sick in Spain. Justice Daketsey stated that although the MP enjoyed parliamentary immunity, the court could only accept his absence upon the receipt of a written permit from the Clerk ...