Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

Members of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly Task force plying the Circle-Achimota road in Accra took passengers on board a trotro by surprise by openly extorting money from the driver. The driver legitimately parked at a bus stop under the Achimota overpass that leads to the new station and picked up passengers. But he was stopped at the bus stop opposite the old station and asked to turn around the vehicle to the new station. The drama thatensured was captured by Graphic Online last Friday.  Passengers aboard the vehicle protested and insisted they were late for work.  The AMA men asked the driver to pay GHȻ50 before the car would be released.   The driver paid GHȻ40 but the men were adamant and insisted on collecting an extra GHȻ10. “We don’t collect GHȻ40. Top it up,” one of them said. He even attempted to seize the key from the driver.  For about 15 minutes, the car stopped and passengers who were sitting in front were ...

More than 200 inmates of the Nsawam Prison have benefited from an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) programme being run by the prison. The Nsawam Prison is among 23 others where the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) is supporting the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) to equip prisoners with information technology skills. Currently, 100 inmates are at various stages of their ICT education, which ends with the writing of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) examination. The convicts are taken through both software and hardware training and they are selected based on their interest in the subject. Help us Speaking during a facility tour of the Nsawam Prison, the Director General of the GPS, Ms Matilda Baffour-Awuah, called on corporate organisations and non-governmental organisations to help in efforts towards the integration of prisoners. “We are giving them a lot of training, but when they leave the prisons it is difficult for th...

THE year 2014 is over and the curtain goes down on one of the most dramatic years in Ghana’s history.   Filled with economic crunch, political turbulence, Ebola scare, energy crisis, scandals and allegations of corruption as well as some progress for a country struggling to keep pace with its infrastructural deficit, 2014 will also be remembered for its many industrial strikes and demonstrations. The year was very interesting politically. It was characterised by intrigues and acrimony. There was tension, especially within the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, and many times, it rose to a crescendo that many thought the tiny thread that bound the parties together would break. The economy The Cedi’s fall and rise Just a step into the new year, the cedi laced it boots for a race against the country’s major trading currencies. That race took its toll on the currency. If the cedi were to be a human being suffering from dirrhoea, it would have real...

Samira Alhassan does not miss any of her favourite television soap operas. But it is not South American shows that keep her glued to the screen – it is the Hindi series and the latest Bollywood releases. “I like watching Hindi films and soaps,” said the 26-year-old housewife. “There is comedy, action and romance – all in one movie. I do watch some American and South Korean series, but prefer the Hindi movies,” she said before turning to her remote. In front of the Dunia Cinema at Nima in Accra, a young man delicately arranges a number of pirated copies of movies on table on a busy street. He sells neither Hollywood Box Office hits nor Nollywood blockbusters. The collection is simply Bollywood movies and musical videos.  For many Ghanaians who had not stepped into the bowels of the world’s largest democracy—India—their imaginary walk on the streets of Indian cities and towns, including Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kanpur and Rajkot, has been through the evergreen Bollywood, the thrivin...

I am fuming with anger and frustration as I write this letter. It has been five days and four nights without electricity at home. I had just arrived home on Monday evening (January 19, 2015)  at about 8 o’clock when the power went off.  In the last two days, I have called the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Customer Care hotline to complain about the  plight of residents of  the Achimota ABC Railway Quarters and its environs.  It has since been a tale of contradictions.  On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 when I called, a gentleman by name Bright received  the call, asked me to hold on for about two minutes only to say that on Monday, my area was scheduled to go off. I don’t know whether to call it a miscalculation or a blatant lie, because we were to go off the next morning. Then he throws in what really pissed me off. According to him, there had been a shortfall of power at a sub-station at Mallam, that supplies power to my area and other areas, ...

The Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) yesterday inaugurated a planning committee for the ministerial meeting of the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), to be hosted in Ghana in April 2015. The members of the committee, chaired by a Minister of State, Mr Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo, were drawn from institutions including the Office of the President, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), Ghana Immigration Service, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), MESTI, State Protocol and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Functions of COMSATS   Currently, President John Dramani Mahama chairs the 21-member organisation which facilitates the exchange of experts among member countries, aimed at building the critical mass of scientists, engineers and technicians needed for accelerating the socio-economic development of member countries. The COMSATS’ panel of experts on science, technology and innovatio...

Pupils and teachers of the Otcherbleku D/A Basic School are basking in joy of seeing the construction of a nine-classroom block to replace the existing one. Inadequate classrooms at the school in the newly created Ningo-Prampram District in the Greater Accra Region had compelled authorities of the school to cram six classes into three classrooms. But after Daily Graphic publications of January 25, 2014 and February 10, 2014, which drew attention to dire situation in the school where about 100 pupils are sharing three plywood-partitioned classrooms while another group of primary one pupils sweat under a shed, the GETFund has stepped in to construct new edifice for the school.  Apart from the primary school, the fund is also constructing a junior high school (JHS) for the community to save pupils the trouble of walking about five kilometres to Apollonia, a nearby community for JHS education. Project cost and facilities  The project is being executed by Asumadu Construction ...

 The spot fine system to discipline reckless drivers will take off by the middle of this year, after almost two years of its planned introduction. Under the new system, to be implemented jointly by the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), the Ghana Police Service and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), drivers who flout road regulations could have their licences revoked after six offences. The spot fine offences In all, there are 38 offences that will attract spot fines. They include jumping the red light, driving without seatbelt, driving without licence, using the wrong licence for the wrong vehicle, speeding, failure to carry a fire extinguisher, refusal to renew a roadworthy certificate, use of unspecified tinted glass, driving a vehicle without reflectors at the back, failure to wear protective clothing while on a motorbike, driving on the shoulders of the road, talking on phone while driving, the use of foreign driving licences, obstruction of intersections...

The Chinese Embassy in Ghana says it is prepared to partner the government to deal with the illegal mining menace in the country.  The Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Ms Sun Baohong, told journalists in Accra after a closed-door meeting with officials of the Minerals Commission that the Embassy would lead the campaign by educating Chinese citizens about Ghana’s mining laws and regulations. Illegal mining menace Ghana has over the years struggled to deal with authorised practices since small-scale mining was legalised in 1986.  Water bodies have been destroyed and deep trenches left behind on farmlands.  In July 2013 alone, the Ghana Immigration Service repatriated almost 4,000 Chinese to their country as part of efforts to end illegal mining known as galamsey. Other illegal miners including Russians, Indians, Nigerians, Togolese and Nigeriens were also deported for their involvement in small-scale mining which is preserved for Ghanaians.  ...