Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

THE National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) says drivers need to exercise extreme caution and be alert as the country enters the rainy season to prevent avoidable road carnage. “The rainy season is often characterised by hazy weather conditions affecting visibility, bad road networks and overflowing gutters and drainages which render some roads unmotorable due to debris and flooding,” the commission said in a statement. The situation, it said, affected driving and might increase the risk for road traffic crashes. The commission’s concerns come on the back of the Ghana Meteorological Agency’s predictions of more rains and floods in the coming weeks. The commission, therefore, urged drivers, vehicle owners, transport operators and managers to ensure that their vehicles were in good working condition. “Your vehicles must have good headlights, reflectors, tyres and wipers. Drivers on the other hand must exercise a lot of care and proper judgement.” “Drivers should avoid flooded roads wh

Three student nurses of the Mampong Nurses and Midwifery Training School in the Ashanti Region, including a married woman, have been denied the right to register and write their licensure examinations because they are pregnant.  Although two of them have been delivered of their babies, the school authorities have refused to allow them to write the examination because of a rule that has long been scrapped by the Ministry of Health. Human Rights Lawyer, Mr Francis-Xavier Sosu, whose law firm, F-X Law & Associates, has taken up the case, yesterday filed a petition for an intervention at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in Accra. “I want an immediate intervention to ensure that the students register and write their licensure examinations,” he told the Daily Graphic. He said it was not too late for the authorities to intervene because the registration was still open. Discriminatory Mr Sosu, who described the action as very discriminatory, said “all

Judges and magistrates have been admonished to be fair, firm and consistent in handling election-related matters ahead of the November presidential and parliamentary elections.  A Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Jones Dotse, who said this, stressed, “We are urging you to be consistent in whatever decision you give. "We don’t expect a magistrate sitting in Kumasi to give a ruling/sentence in similar circumstances and another magistrate in Ho giving a different ruling/sentence which will create more confusion,"he sa He was speaking at a training programme to build the capacity of selected magistrates and judges from the district, magistrate, circuit and High courts on CI 91 in Accra. CI 91 The CI 91 spells out processes for registration, offences and penalties for the conduct of elections. It replaces CI 72 which regulated the 2012 elections and is a bit different from CI 72 because, for the first time, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards ha

A Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Jones Dotse, has said the court was clear in asking the Electoral Commission (EC) to remove the names of voters who got on the register with National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards.  In what looks like a clarification of the court’s May 5 ruling,  Mr Justice Dotse, who insisted he was not interpreting the ruling, said: “We (Supreme Court) said the use of the NHIS, therefore, was unconstitutional and they (EC) should take steps to take the opportunity to clean the register of those undesirable persons.” He told journalists yesterday on the fringes of a training programme for judges and magistrates on CI 91, the law that regulates the 2016 elections, that the Supreme Court was forthright and clear that the “use of NHIS cards was unconstitutional because the criteria for the use of the NHIS card was not based on Ghanaian citizenship but only on residence in Ghana”. The Supreme Court judge’s comments come on the heels of the decision by the EC no

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has predicted severe water crisis for the country by 2025 if nothing is done to reduce the increasing pollution of water bodies and forest degradation. The acting Deputy Executive Director, Technical of the agency,Mr  Ebenezer Appah-Sampong, also anticipated that the country’s per capita water availability would be 1000 cubic metre  (m3) per annum, making Ghana a water-stressed country. The situation is also likely to lead to high water tariffs as the cost of treating the polluted water would continue to go up.  According to him, the trend could also breed conflicts as communities would employ people to guard their water bodies.  He was speaking at a colloquium organised by the Forestry Commission as apart of this year’s Forestry Week and Greening Ghana Day celebrations  in Accra yesterday.   The colloquium brought together experts from forestry, water and environmental sectors to discuss “the role of forest in protectin

One of the few remaining wetlands in the Greater Accra Region, the Sakumono Ramsar Site, has been invaded by real estate developers and encroachers. As a result, about four acres which was cultivated under the Coastal Wetlands Management Project from 1995 to 2000 has been razed down. The latest incident took place on May 2, 2016, when a group of people alleged to be under the command of a chief in Nungua cut down more than 100 trees at the site. Some portions of the site have also been allegedly sold out to unsuspecting members of the public. The Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Mr Samuel Afari Dartey, said this at the launch of this year’s Forestry Week and Greening Ghana Day celebrations at the site near Tema yesterday.   Project to save site To save the site, Mr Dartey said the commission had developed a concept note, which had been approved by its board for the development of the site into a modern wetland-based educational centre.