Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

Dynasty Chinese Restaurant, Thursday night opened its doors to customers in spite of an order by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) that it should be shut down for operating under unhygienic conditions. The popular restaurant remained open throughout the night in an apparent defiance of the notice of closure the city authority issued to it last Thursday.    Responding to the news of the restaurant opening notwithstanding the  directive, the AMA Public Health Director, Dr Simpson Anim Boateng, said “we’ll process them for court.” “What they have done is a violation of our directive. We’ll go there again to check. If they defy our order, the AMA will take them to court.” he said.  The AMA had within the week started a crackdown on unhygienic restaurants, eateries and chop bars in the capital in the wake of a cholera epidemic that has left more than 130 people dead and more than 12,000 others hospitalised.  Ahead of last Thursday’s exer...

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Nii Osah Mills, has raised concern about the possibility of a connivance between some officials of the Forestry Commission (FC) and some timber exporters in the granting of licences to export rosewood, which has been banned. At the moment, we are faced with a situation where in spite of the ban, there are people who go ahead and cut rosewood for export and they come up with purportedly valid licences,” the minister said during a familiarisation tour of the FC.  The rosewood ban The harvesting and exporting of rosewood was banned by Cabinet indefinitely on January 1, 2014.  Until recently, rosewood timber was used locally but demand for the product in Asian markets, particularly China, had increased, leading to the excessive exploitation of the wood. A temporary ban was, therefore, imposed in June last year on the harvesting and exporting of rosewood but it was lifted after new measures were put in place by the ...

Every crack of dawn, while most people are coiled in warm or cold beds, Wekem Akaba,a trader, wakes at 3 a.m. to get ready for her two-hour truck ride to work in the Walewale Market. Living in Tuvvu, a quiet little village in the Yagba-Kubori District in Northern Region, Wekem journeys routinely on bumpy and pothole-filled roads to the market, where she sells millet and rice Tuvvu is among scores of communities in the Northern Region known as ‘Overseas’ because they are cut off from civilisation during the rainy season when floods occur. The Tuvvu community’s most prized asset is a 35-metre steel bridge completed last year on River Gongowu. Three other bridges meant to connect the villages on the Wa-Walewale stretch are on hold because of lack of funds.  A tough journey On days that drivers of two vehicles decide to do the journey together, visibility becomes so poor because of the dust that clouds the road. The journey on a KIA truck begins with loading th...