Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

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 described as

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

Mourners from all walks of life on Saturday turned up at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra to bid farewell to Sammy Okaitey, the News Editor of the Daily Graphic who died in April 2011. Among the personalities who attended the ceremony are the Nii Armah Ashietey; Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Nortey Duah; Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Alex Segbefia; a Deputy Chief of Staff, Professor Kwesi Yankah; the Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Mr O.B. Amoah, MP for Aburi-Nsawam; and Alhaji M.N.D Jawula, former President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), and Mr Fred Pappoe, Vice-President of the GFA. Others are Ghana’s former Ambassador to Serbia, Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe;former WBC champion, Barima Azumah Nelson; Coaches Sam Arday and Francis Oti Akenten and a host of media practitioners, including Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), and a former Managing Director (MD) of the GCGL, Mr Mohammed Ibrahim A

With four days to go for the national delegates congress of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Sunyani, the battlelines for the party’s flagbearership slot has been drawn. After weeks of campaigning and overtures, the two contenders, President John Evans Atta Mills and former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, are set to take their case to the delegates to settle a fiercely anticipated battle of thumbs to determine the party’s presidential candidate for the 2012 election. This is the first time a sitting Ghanaian President will have to win his party’s nomination through the ballot via a keen internal contest. The convention had been for the ruling party to acclaim a sitting President for a second term. But the soul-mate of the founder of the NDC, Nana Konadu, has decided to torpedo that convention as she pits her strength against President Mills’s as the first female to contest the flagbearership of the NDC. Reports of threats an

The Fievie Rice Project in the South Tongu District in the Volta Region is set to harvest 1,500  tones of high grade rice by the end of July, this year, for the local market. The farm is also on course to produce some 20,000 tonnes of rice by 2012 for the Ghanaian market. The project, a public private partnership (PPP) supported by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, is a collaboration between the South Tongu District,  Global Agri-Development Company (GADCO), an agriculture investment company and the Fievie community. The project, under the watch of a team of engineers and rice experts from Brazil and a local hydrologist, uses water from the Volta Lake for irrigation. During a tour of some rice fields and a rice mill in the South Tongu District, a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP), Mr Fifi Kwetey, said the project would be one of many in the country aimed at making the country self-sustaining so far as food was concerned. Currently

The Accra Circuit Court has issued bench warrants for the arrest of managing directors (MDs) and heads of 30 institutions and companies for allegedly defaulting in the payment of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions of their staff. The defaulters have allegedly also refused to fulfil negotiated terms between them and SSNIT for the settlement of their indebtedness, amounting to GH¢589,392.59. The Accra Fast Track High Court has also issued a writ of summons to the Chief Executive Officer of Gocrest Security Limited (GSL), Mr George Aggudey, for defaulting in the payment of GH¢1,678,457.85, being SSNIT contributions of his employees. According to the trust’s statement of claim, in October 2006, after several appeals to the management of GSL to settle its indebtedness, which yielded no result, a criminal summons was issued against Aggudey at the Circuit Court for the recovery of the arrears. However, the cas

The lifestyle of some ministers of the Gospel who live extravagantly while their members wallow in poverty has attracted verbal lashes from Rev. Dr Samuel Ayete-Nyampong, the Head Pastor of the Shalom Presbyterian Church at Haatso in Accra. “Unfortunately, the church, like the general society, is becoming corrupt with leaders who are power-drunk and operating under the pretence of being empowered by the Holy Spirit,” he said. Rev. Ayete-Nyampong, who was speaking at the inaugural service of the church last Sunday, observed that such leaders had become “the central reference point of the church, displaying and projecting themselves as if they are the Christ, without whom nothing can go on”. “They display extravagance while many of the flock wallow in poverty and are denied their share of the wealth being amassed in the name of ‘offering to God” he said. The occasion was also used to cut sod for the construction of an ultra modern church complex and the induction of 13 officers

The Inter-Church Relations Director of the Global Evangelical Church (GEC), Rev. Samuel Dickson K. Dumevi, has urged Christians in political positions to use their status to positively influence society. He noted that it was rather regrettable that some Christians use their positions to pursue personal interest to the detriment of the larger society. “Today, we live in a world in which people openly abuse their office by stealing, robbing and grossly abusing others they are supposed to protect,” he observed. Rev. Dumevi was delivering a sermonon the theme “ Leadership in this World of Conflict “ at the 2011 commissioning and ordination of pastors of the GEC in Accra. In all, 12 pastors were ordained, while 11 were commissioned for the work of the vineyard. According to the church’s doctrine, a married pastor qualifies for ordination after graduating from the Global Theological Seminary (GTS) and serving and pasturing a congregation for two years, while candidat

The government will, before the end of the year, procure some 4,000 specialised cell phones for emergency response purposes. The phones will be distributed to personnel of organisations such as the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), the Ghana Ambulance Service, the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana National Fire Service.  Communications Minister, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, made this disclosure at the inauguration of a national ‘School Connectivity Project’ at Biriwa in the Central Region. Under the project, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) centres have been provided for all the 37 national vocational training institutes countrywide.  Valued at GH¢75,000 for each institute, the ICT centre project was funded by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC). The objective is to make all vocational trainees ICT proficient before they graduate. The GIFEC was established in 2004 as an implementing agency of the Ministry of Communi

The Ministry of Health is establishing alternative medicine centers at 17 hospitals in the country. The centres, which would be housed by the Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals and all regional hospitals in the country would be manned by graduates of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology  herbal medicine programme. The Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Rojo Mettle-Nunoo made this known as the swearing-in of Executive Council of the Premier International School of Homeopathy and Alternative Medicine (PISHAM). Members of the Council in a group photograph with the Deputy Health Minister, Mr Rojo Mettle-Nunoo The school is  a joint initiative with international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Homeopath Without Borders and the Ghana Homeopathy Project in the United Kingdom. The 10-member council led by Mr James Agboada is expected to promote homeopathy in Ghana through the strengthening of the school. Homeopathy is a system for treating disease based

The leadership of the Christian community in Ghana has called on all, including religious bodies and traditional rulers, to join hands to confront the canker of homosexuality in the country. “We, as a Christian community in Ghana, totally condemn this as an unnatural and unGodly act and call on all religious bodies and organisations, traditional rulers and all decent-loving Ghanaians to join this campaign,” the General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG), Rev Dr Fred Deegbe, said at a news conference in Accra. This is the first time all the different Christian denominations have presented a common position on the issue which has been hotly debated ever since the Daily Graphic reported in May that some 8,000 homosexuals had been registered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the Western and some parts of the Central regions, with majority of them infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS. While politicians remain vocal on almost al

All the five victims of the Ashaiman gas explosion who were admitted to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital are reported dead. This brings to six the number of people who have died from the explosion which resulted in the injury of 18 people. The Director of the Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Burns Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah, told the Daily Graphic that aside three people who had died earlier at Korle-Bu, two more died on Wednesday. one of the victims of the explosion at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. Although he declined to give the names of the dead, information gathered by the Daily Graphic indicated that Pascal Amuzu, Prince Agyare and Richard Dzineku, were the latest victims of the gas victims to succumb to death. Those who died earlier were Abdullai Manamu and Baba Issaka Yakubu. Dr Ampomah said even though the centre did all it could to save those who died, the extent of their injury, coupled with the absence of intensive care