Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

MAJORITY and Minority in Parliament yesterday disagreed over the formula for the composition of membership of committees, parliamentary delegations and other parliamentary groups. The bone of contention was the breaking down of the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) on both sides into a ratio that was representative of the 169 members on the side of the Majority and the 106 members on the Minority side. There was a heated debate over whether the House should adopt 61:39 (rounded ratio) term of the members on two sides of the house) as the ratio for selecting MPs into the 16 Select Committees and 11 Standing Committees of the House or just stick with 169:106. The debate at the Second Sitting of the First Meeting of the First Session of the Seventh Parliament began after the presentation of the report on the formula by the Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu. Arguments While the Minority argued that there had been a precedent in the Sixth Parliament agreed by both sides whi...

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo yesterday announced his first batch of 13 ministerial appointees who will help him steer the affairs of the state. The names of the 13 have already been submitted to Parliament for vetting and approval. The nominees are blend of people who served as ministers and deputy ministers in the Kufuor administration and leading faces of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The list includes Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, who served as Minister of Finance and Economic Planning and Education, Youth and Sports in the Kufuor regime, for the position of Senior Minister, which was first introduced by the Kufuor administration in its first term but later abandoned during its second term in 2006. The rest are Mr Albert Kan-Daapah, National Security; Mr Alan Kyerematen, Trade and Industry; Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance; Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Agriculture; Mr Boakye Agyarko, Energy; Mr Dominic Nitiwul, Defence, and Mr Ambrose Dery, the Interior. The others are Ms Shirley Ayorkor...

  After 46 years of residence in its local office, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) headquarters now has its own office complex. It was inaugurated by President John Mahama in Accra yesterday. Work on the five-floor edifice, which dominates the skylines of Okponglo in Accra, started in 2009 and was completed in October this year, as the second phase of a bigger WAEC office complex. Built by Tieso Ghana Limited, the complex boasts a guest house, conference centre and offices that would host the headquarters of Anglophone West Africa’s examinations body. Shared building  Prior to the completion of the project, the headquarters of the council had shared the same building with the Ghana National Office at Ridge in Accra since 1970. That became grossly inadequate over the years, due to increased staff strength and expansion of functions of the council as an international organisation. Government’s responsibili...

  Nineteen years after he took his first shot at becoming the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will, tomorrow, realise that dream as Ghana comes under the global spotlight for his inauguration, along with the incoming Vice-President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. It is a dream that has been budding since 1998 when the then 53-year-old Nana Akufo-Addo contested the flagbearership of the NPP and placed second to the man who would later become the second President of the Fourth Republic — Mr J.A. Kufuor — who led the country from 2001 to 2009. Although considered too old, at 72 years, for the office by his critics and opponents, the President-elect was third-time lucky, just like the late President J.E.A. Mills, who contested in 2000, 2004 and 2008 when, coincidentally, he snatched the seat from Nana Akufo-Addo in 2008 at age 64. For the record… A veteran of three flag-bearer races (2008, 2012, 2016), the 72-year-old lawyer will be...

President John Mahama on Wednesday inaugurated the first phase of a new 650-bed University of Ghana Medical Centre at Legon in Accra. Said to be comparable to none in West Africa, the $271 million Medical Centre is a referral facility. The facility comprises eight separate buildings and houses, different specialised areas such as emergency, Imaging, operating theatres, laboratories and a computer room. It will also have maternity and paediatric clinics, an orthopaedic centre, an in-patient medical training facility, staff accommodation and a maintenance and logistics building. The centre will provide specialists care in areas, including urology, ophthalmology, ear, nose and throat, cardiology, dermatology, neurology and interventional radiology (cancers). It also has facilities for cancer management, a medical hotel where clients could live and consult specialists, in addition to assisted reproductive technology, to provide fertility solutions as well as a helipad...

President John Mahama yesterday received the letters of credence of three envoys accredited to Ghana at a ceremony, which was characterised by a display of the country’s tradition and culture. They are the High Commissioner of India, Mr Birender Singh Yadav, the Ambassador of Iran, Dr Nosratollah Maleki and the Ambassador of Morocco, Mr Hamid Chabar. The envoys talked about their commitment to further strengthen the cooperation of their respective countries with Ghana, focussing on economic, diplomatic and political development. President Mahama assured them that in spite of the change in government, which would see the New Patriotic Party (NPP) take over on January 7, they would enjoy the same level of cooperation from the country. India The first to present his letter of credence to the President was the Indian High Commissioner, Mr Yadav. Speaking on the relationship between the two countries that stretches as far back as the late 1950s, President Mah...