Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

A former First Lady, , picks her nomination forms at the headquarters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) today to contest the party’s flag-bearer slot for the 2012 presidential election. After picking the forms, Nana Konadu will hit the ground with a news conference to launch her campaign at the Accra International Conference Centre tomorrow Wednesday, May 4, 2011. For now, it is not clear the message she will present to the delegates, but signals are clear that she will use what she perceives as the shortcomings of the Mills administration to drive home her ambition. Nana Konadu and President Mills stare history in the face, as the contest for the flagbearership, scheduled for Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region from July 8 to July 10, 2011, will be the first time a sitting president in the country is to be challenged at the end of his first term for his par...

The Accra Fast Track High Court has remanded into prison custody Christian Sheriff Asem Darkey, aka the Limping Man, who is alleged to have played a major role in the shipment and disappearance of 77 parcels of cocaine, weighing 2,310 kilogrammes, in April 2006.  Asem Darkey-the alleged drug baron  The decision of the court, presided over by Mr Justice Mustapha Habib Logo, followed a plea by the lawyer for Darkey, Mr George Heward-Mills, to the court to remand his client into prison custody, alleging that besides his client not being fed well while he was in the custody of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), he (the lawyer) was being denied access to him. The case started at the High Court Monday, following the decision of the Accra Circuit Court to discharge Darkey because of a nolle prosequi filed by the Attorney- General’s Department which meant the state was no longer interested in prosecuting the case. Darkey was, however, re-arrested and taken into cus...

The Supreme Court has dismissed an action by two deputy ministers that challenged the right of the National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, to purchase a state bungalow he had occupied as a minister during the Kufuor regime. The court, in a unanimously  on Tuesday held that the plaintiffs failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the accusations of conflict of interest, cronyism and arbitrariness they had levelled against Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey. Presided over by the acting Chief Justice, Mr Justice William Atuguba, the court was of the view that Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey did not acquire the said property as a minister but as a private citizen after he had resigned from public office. In 2008, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and Dr Edward Omane Boamah, then private citizens but now Deputy ministers of Information and Sports, respectively, brought the action against Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey, who was then the Minister of Tourism and National Orientation, ...

The increasing demand for ferrous scrap metals has turned the banks of the Odaw River on the Graphic Road into the hub of scrap metal activities in Accra. Scores of people buying and selling anything — from the residue of burnt electronic gadgets to scrap metals — converge daily on the site to transact business. From just a few truck pushers who offloaded their daily collection of scrap on the banks of the polluted river in the past, the situation has dramatically changed in recent times, with heaps of metals now lining the banks of the river, while scores of articulated trucks wait to cart them away for export. When the Daily Graphic visited the place last week, a number of scrap dealers, many of them children, who did not wear protective clothing were seen dismantling computers and television sets in search of metals that could be sold. The remaining plastic, cables and casings were either burnt or simply dumped into the Odaw River, which is already filled with tonnes of ...

The Accra Circuit Court hearing the cocaine-turn-soda case involving DSP Gifty Mawuenyegah Tehoda has threatened to strike out the case if the state continues to show no interest in the matter. The court, presided over by Mr Francis Obiri, ordered the Attorney-General’s Department to make an appearance on the next adjourned date or have the case struck out. “If your case is here and you don’t send any letter or anyone but you sit in your office without respecting the court, I will strike it out,” he warned. Mr Obiri gave the warning after Mr E.A. Vordaogu, counsel for Tehoda, had declared his intention to file a motion for the court to acquit and discharge his client because neither the investigator nor the prosecutor appeared to have any interest in the case. Mr Vordaogu catalogued a number of dates on which the prosecution was not in court, saying the most recent was April 20, 2011 when the prosecution failed to appear in court and the case was adjourned to April 27, 201...

Two police officers have appeared before the Accra Circuit Court for allegedly defrauding 36 people in the Ashanti Region under the pretext of enlisting them into the Ghana Police Service. The two, Edward Bosomtwe Gyan and George Kwesi Appiah, pleaded not guilty to the charges and have been granted bail in the sum of GHC60,000, with two sureties to be justified within the Greater Accra Region. They are to reappear on June 23, 2012. Gyan and Appiah, together with their accomplice, Benjamin Anobiga, who is on the run, are alleged to have collected various sums of money amounting to GH¢50,000 from their victims and forged and issued a Ghana Police Service recruitment letter to them. The facts of the case, as presented Friday to the Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Mr Francis Obiri, by a police prosecutor, DSP Aidan Dery, were that some time in 2011, the accused persons collected various sums of money from 36 people with the promise of assisting them to be enlisted into th...

The notorious armed robber and two-time jail breaker, Johnson Kombian, caused laughter at the AMA Court B yesterday when he jokingly asked press photographers to pay before he would allow them to take pictures of him. “As for today, you have to pay me money before you take pictures of me oooo,” he told a team of journalists outside the courtroom. Spotting a neatly cropped hair and clad in a white Polo shirt over a pair of faded jeans, Kombian appeared at the court heavily guarded by prison officers armed to the teeth. With Kombian’s history of jail breaking at the back of their minds, security detail, comprising police and prison officers, manned two court entrances, while a prison officer sat closely beside him on a bench shared by some litigants. When his committal proceeding was called and the judge, Mr Ali Baba Bature, asked what language Kombian would be comfortable with, a smiling Kombian told the court in English that he would be comfortable communicating in Bi...

The case of the alleged cocaine baron, Sheriff Asem Darkey, who is said to have played a major role in the shipment and disappearance of 77 parcels of cocaine in 2006, has been transferred to the High Court for trial. The Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Mr Francis Obiri, obliged the request made by the prosecutor from the Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Department, Mr Kwabena Owusu Ameyaw, for the case to be transferred, since the original case was tried by the High Court. A police prosecutor, Deputy Superintendent of Police Mr A.A. Annor, had earlier informed the Circuit Court in March this year that the case docket was to be sent to the (A-G’s) office for advice. He had explained that the advice was necessary because the case also involved other persons who had already been dealt with by the High Court. When the case was called yesterday, Mr Ameyaw told the court that the A-G had advised that the case be sent to the High Court for prosecution. The ac...

When Ama Aboagewa (not real name) got her new teaching job with a private school in a busy Accra suburb, little did she know that her long cherished dream of getting pregnant will be a long shot in the dark for the next three years because of her conditions of service. She could have shut the door in the face of the headmaster the moment he showed her the document to append her signature but alas, her options were very limited. Almost three years after her national service, hundreds of applications to companies that would not even acknowledge receipt and bad old men who would want to see her pants before giving her a job, she had given up hope of ever finding one until the headmaster called and offered her the job. A phenomenon is emerging on the labour front where female workers in some companies risk being dismissed for becoming pregnant unless they serve a number of years. The situation is widespread particularly in the hospitality and private educational institutions wh...

A South African infrastructural development company, Bigen Africa, has expressed interest in partnering Ghanaian real estate companies to build affordable houses for the poor and middle income earners.  Speaking to the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of Bigen Africa roundtable to introduce the operations of the company to the Ghanaian market, Mr Emmanuel Anesu Kere, the Africa Region Director of the company, said the company had the capacity to deliver and help reduce Ghana’s housing deficit. Currently, Ghana’s housing deficit stands at about 1.5 million. Even though several real estate companies have had a full plate, the cry of many is that the houses are not affordable largely as a result of cost of materials and the high demand for housing. But Mr Kere gave the assurance that “Per our experience in South Africa, where we have provided low-cost housing to millions of people, we will transfer that expertise here to support not only the sector in Ghana but ...

A number of Ghanaian medical assistants are to benefit from specialist training in neo-natal care in Israel, Ms  Sharon Bar-Li, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana has said. The details of the package are still being discussed. Additionally, Israel is working out details of establishing a neo-natal care unit in Kumasi. The unit will be the third to be built in Kumasi. Already, two units built by Israel  have been completed  in the Ashanti Region. The Israel Ambassador made these known at her country’s 64th Independence Day reception in Accra last Tuesday. Israel was declared a state on May 14, 1948; a day before the expiry of Britain's United Nations’ mandate over historic Palestine. Israel traditionally celebrates Independence Day according to the Jewish calendar. According to statistics from Israel Central Bureau of Statistics on the eve of Israel's 64th Independence Day on Tuesday, the country's population stood at 7.881 million; a  significant rise in its popul...

Ghana’s National Aquaculture Development Plan has been unveiled with the aim of providing the capacity for fish farmers to increase production.  The plan, unveiled by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), targets 100,000 tons of fish for the country by 2016. The GNADP provides a roadmap where aquaculture will contribute significantly to food and nutritional security, employment generation, increased incomes, economic growth and poverty reduction. The implementation of the five-year comprehensive medium term plan would cost a little over $84 million. Close to $66,000 would be contributed by the government while public investment takes care of remaining $18,000. The plan, among other objectives, aims at providing a geographic information system involving an indicative mapping of high potential aquacultural areas where fish farming is feasible. It is also expected to facilitate increased supply of high quality fish seed by the private sector to fis...

Fire Thursday swept through the second floor of Orca Decor, a supermarket on the Graphic Road in Accra, destroying a number of items in three offices. The ground floor of the three-storey building was unaffected, even though the devastating fire reduced to ashes furniture, files, computers and electrical fittings on the second floor. The fire, which was said to have started around 2 p.m., took personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service less than an hour to bring under control. It is not immediately known what caused the fire, but there is speculation that it might have been caused by an electrical fault. When the Daily Graphic got to the scene, Fire Service personnel were busy, together with employees of the company and some volunteers, salvaging whatever they could from the fire. A huge banner bearing the name of the company had to be ripped off to enable the fire personnel to gain access to the burning offices, as part of the building had been barricaded. While some o...

The Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority, Mr Kweku Andoh Awotwi, has given an assurance that the Bui Dam would become operational in 2013. According to him, the dam, together with some initiatives already in the system, would add some 700 megawatts of electricity to the current supply, beginning with 130 megawatts within the next three months. He attributed the difficulty in implementing programmes aimed at increasing the country’s electricity stock to the slow response from successive governments to investment in the sector. Mr Awotwi, who made this known at the discussion on the way forward for Ghana’s energy sector at the Ghana Economic Forum, said it took about five years to implement one programme that could shore up electricity generation and supply. He said as population increased, demand for electricity supply also shot up but successive governments had not been able to keep with the investment needed to push produ...

Military communication experts from across the world began a four-day meeting in Accra Mondayto plan strategies and tactics to equip some African countries with means to handle emerging and existing threats on the continent. The meeting is the final planning conference of Africa Endeavour 2012 to be hosted by the Armed Forces of Cameroon. Africa Endeavor 2012, which starts in Douala, Cameroon, in June, is expected to bring together more than 200 participants from 35 African nations, the US, Canada, The Netherlands and ECOWAS.  Africa Endeavour is the US government’s initiative, in partnership with the African Union (AU), aimed at developing command, control and communication tactics, techniques and procedures. The exercise, which is expected to attract military and civilian participants from over 40 countries from the continent and beyond, is, among others things, meant to give the participating nations the opportunity to test their military communication equipment with a...

THE termination of drainage works linked to the N1 Road that runs through the Dzorwulu Community may result in flooding in low lying areas and neighbourhood along the Onyansia River between Dzorwulu and Roman Ridge. The drain which forms part of the natural course of the Onyansa River running from Aburi has been terminated at the Valley View Junction leaving parts of Dzorwulu vulnerable to floods. Residents are, therefore, appealing to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the Ministry of Works and Housing and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to complete the badly needed flood control projects to mitigate the danger.  “If the drains are not completed and the rains come, we will be in trouble hence the need to draw the attention of all the relevant authorities to the problem,” Mr William Doworkpor, a resident said. Mr Doworkpor who is also an aspiring Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency on the ticket of the Progressive Peoples Party told th...

THE Zion Senior High School (ZICO) at Anloga in the Volta Region has launched its diamond jubilee celebration with a commitment to expand the frontiers of secondary education in the region. Launching the anniversary in Accra, Mr Cornelius Dzakpasu, a former Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the guest speaker for the launch, said  ZICO had produced illustrious sons and daughters who had contributed tremendously to the manpower base, the development and progress of the nation. He said in spite of the school’s current challenges, which to him were surmountable with the support of old students coupled with the building of strategic partnerships with government and other stakeholders, “this is the year to celebrate our achievements”. Zion College, which started with 37 students now has a population of 1, 463 students. Mr Dzakpasu, who is an old boy of the school, urged the leadership of the school and the alumni to kick start preparations towards celebratin...

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 ...