Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

Some workers of the State Housing Company (SHC), have demanded the immediate reinstatement of their Managing Director, Mr Mark Nii Akwei Ankrah, for the smooth running of the company’s operations. According to them, Mr Ankrah’s absence from office is stifling the company’s operations and frustrating the range of strategic investors that have come on board since he took office a year ago. "We want them (the authorities) to bring our MD back,”  some executive members of the senior staff association and the staff union, who claimed anonymity told the Daily Graphic in Accra. Mr Ankrah, a social housing specialist, was appointed to the position in February, 2010. He was, however, directed to proceed on leave in December, 2010 for the Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing to investigate allegations levelled against him by some staff members. Prior to that, the SHC Board had investigated some allegations and submitted their findings to the ministry but the ministry decide...

RESPONDENTS in a research conducted by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) have registered their displeasure with the practice of paying huge ex gratia to former presidents. They were of the view that even though there was the need to reward former heads of state, the huge financial outlay involved in the payment of ex gratia could adversely affect the economy. The findings, contained in a report titled, “The 1992 Constitution and Emoluments: Findings from a CDD-Ghana Study”, also revealed strong public sentiment against the lack of information on the salaries and allowances of Article 71 office holders, especially those of the President and Members of Parliament, even though their salaries were from the public purse. The report indicated that persons who had some form of knowledge about the emoluments of those office holders had them through informal sources, such as the banks where those office holders took their salaries. Article 71 of the 1992 Constituti...

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...

About 70 pupils from selected schools in the Greater Accra and Eastern regions were last Friday treated to a Cocoa Trail organised by the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) as part of activities marking National Chocolate Day which falls today. The National Chocolate Day was instituted to allow Ghanaians and visitors alike the opportunity to use cocoa, the nation's most significant export crop, as an expression of love on Valentine's Day. The other advantage of this idea is to celebrate the many nutritional and health benefits of cocoa. The trip took officials of the GTB and the pupils from the Shiayennoh Primary School in Accra and the Mampong-Akuapem Junior High School to the more-than-a-century-old Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm at Mampong and Adjeikrom, a cocoa-growing community near Begoro in the Eastern Region which was established by the late Samuel Adjei, the father of Mr Ako Adjei, a member of Ghana’s Big Six who fought for Ghana’s independence. The first port of call was ...

he United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) says it has no plans to support military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire should the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decide on a military option as the last resort to resolve the Ivorian political crisis. Speaking at a media interaction in Accra, the Commander of AFRICOM, General William E. Ward, said the will of Ivorians was demonstrated during the election and it was, therefore, within their collective interest and will to pursue what would bring peace and progress to their country. AFRICOM is a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defence responsible for US military operations and relations with 53 African nations. Gen. Ward, who is the first Commander of AFRICOM, is in Ghana as part of his final official tour of the continent as commander of AFRICOM. The Commander, who addressed a wide array of issues concerning AFRICOM  and  its  role  in ensuring...

HUNDREDS of traders yesterday turned up at a press conference to press home their demand for President John Evans Atta Mills to intervene in the intended demolition at the Kantamanto Market ordered by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA). The leaders of the various trading associations took turns to address the media and called on the President to stop the AMA from denying them their livelihood. Addressing the media, the Chairman of the Peace and Love Traders Association of Kantamanto, Mr Samuel Amoah, said although the traders had agreed to the expansion and modernisation of the railway system, the ejection of traders would put more than 30,000 people out of business. He appealed to the city authorities to exercise restraint, extend the period of ejection and find an alternative place for the thousands of traders who would be affected by the exercise. “Ejecting us from Kantamanto within this short notice will lead to dire economic consequences, since goods sold on credit will...

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 ...

OPERATORS of commercial motorbikes, popularly known as Okada, yesterday besieged Parliament House to plead that the motor traffic laws that prohibit their trade be amended. RON Numbering more than 300, the Okada men rode their machines in an orderly manner from the General Post Office area in Accra through the Centre for National Culture to Parliament House, where they presented their case. Under the umbrella of the Ghana Private Motorbike Operators Union, the operators accused the police of harassment, extortion and making their operations extremely difficult, even in the face of the safety and precautionary measures they (the operators) had in place. Presenting the petition, which was jointly received by the Majority Leader, Mr Cletus Avoka, and the Deputy Minority leader, Mr Ambrose Dery, the President of the union, Mr Albert Acolatse, appealed to Parliament to “consider the fact that the motorbike service has created employment for the youth of this country and, to some exten...

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...