Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

The Accra High Court has ordered the arrest of two Chinese illegal miners working with En Huang, also known as Aisha as a result of their failure to meet bail conditions Graphic Online's Seth J. Bokpe reported that the two were immediately rearrested Friday morning to be sent to the Nsawam Prison on the orders of the court. The two – Gao Jin Cheng, 45 and Lu Qi Jun, 39 - together with Aisha Huang and two others were granted a GHS 500,000 bail with one surety two weeks ago. Per the bail conditions, the suspects were to hand over their passports and all other travelling documents to the Court’s Registrar for onward transfer to the Director General of the Ghana Immigration Service. Aisha has been charged with undertaking small-scale mining operations, contrary to Section 99 (1) of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006, (Act 703), and providing mine support services without valid registration with the Minerals Commission, contrary to Section 59 and 99 (2) of the Mi...

Yao wanted a new car, one that could send him to work and back without closing his bank account. He went to one of the showrooms on the Graphic Road, the hub of new automobiles in Ghana, to hunt for one. However, he left disappointed because the new cars were beyond his means. Then a friend suggested he checked out the second hand garages at Achimota. He did and got a nice looking saloon car that met his budget. ut just three months after using the car, he regretted not sticking to his trotro, taxi and Uber service. He has suffered the worse embarrasments of his life, including getting late to appointments because the car almost always broke down in the middle of the road. Buying a used car is an unfamiliar territory for many people, but that should not be the case. Buying a new car is the dream of many but the biggest challenge remains the financial demands that accompany the venture. It is for this reason that the used cars industry has seen a tremendous growth in...

The prosecution in the case of the lynched Major Maxwell Adam Mahama says it is ready to prosecute 32 out of the 58 accused persons arraigned so far. The 26 others were discharged by the court but immediately rearrested by the police as investigations continue into their alleged involvement. The Accra Central District Court, which is handling the committal procedure, ordered that one of the accused persons, who claimed to be 17 years, should be sent to the Senior Correctional Centre, also known as the Borstal Institute, until police investigations confirmed his age. During yesterday’s sitting, the prosecutor, DSP George Amegah, prayed the court to allow the prosecution to consolidate three charge sheets to be presented to the court. He also pleaded with the court, presided over by Mr Ebenezer Kwaku Ansah, to remand the accused in police custody to give more time to the police to continue with their investigations. The case has been adjourned to July 6, 2017. ...

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has initiated action to prosecute officials of 177 institutions which function as data controllers but have failed to register with the commission, as required by the law. The  institutions, comprising 25 airlines, 89 hotels, 50 hospitals and 13 shopping centres, have violated the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) which makes it obligatory for institutions that perform functions as data controllers to register, in accordance with Section 27 (1) of the act.  The Executive Director of the DPC, Mrs Teki Akuetteh Falconer, told the Daily Graphic that the commission had already initiated legal action against those organisations. She said it was working with the Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service for the police to go through their own processes to open dockets for the cases. She said in the case of limited liability companies, their directors and secret...

A solemn thanksgiving service was held yesterday at The Qodesh, the North Industrial Area branch of the Lighthouse Chapel International (LCI), to crown activities for the funeral of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama. It was attended by the young military officer’s widow, Mrs Barbara Mahama; his mother, Mrs Veronica Bamford-Addy; his father, Captain Dennis Mahama (retd); the Chief of Defence Staff, Major General Obed Akwa, and a government delegation led by the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo. The service was dominated by songs of worship, during which the widow broke down in tears several times in contrast to her show of strength last Friday at the memorial service in honour of the late Major Mahama who was lynched at Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region. Flanked by her mother-in-law, Mrs Bamford-Addy, and other family members, Mrs Mahama in between sobs sang the many songs of comfort that filled the service. On the last day of the funeral rituals in...

There was a show of military bravado and honour by the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) after the memorial service yesterday at the State House to bid the late Major Maxwell Mahama farewell. With the civilian activities out of the way, the military took over with their march of precision and honour to pay their last respects to their departed colleague. With the civilian activities out of the way, the military took over with their march of precision and honour to pay their last respects to their departed colleague. Right after the closing prayers, his giant photo, decorated with flowers at the edges, was first marched off, followed by eight pallbearers and four trumpet blowers surrounding the casket draped in national colours. Fourteen fully armed soldiers mounted a guard of honour while the pallbearers lifted the casket and marched with it, before putting it in the hearse amid blowing of dirges by the trumpeters. From there, the crowd moved together with the hundreds o...

Waves of anger, horror, tears, grief, pain, anxiety are but a few emotions that have characterised the mourning of the grisly murder of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama. As grief stricken mourners gather today at the forecourt of the State House to bid farewell to the young military officer who was the commander of the military detachment to protect a mining concession in Diaso in the Upper Denkyira East District in the Central Region, many believe his death should galvanise the nation against the evils of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey. Young, vibrant and destined for greatness in the Ghana Armed Forces, Major Mahama’s murder has rallied the nation together not just against the fight against galamsey but an open discourse about mob action. Others also hold the view that the sad episode should awaken the nation’s consciousness against what has been known as mob justice but in reality, mob injustice. Described as humble, God-fearing and polite to a fault, h...

 The Supreme Court has, in a unanimous decision, declared as unconstitutional a requirement by the General Legal Council (GLC) that persons seeking to enter the Ghana School of Law (GSL) need to pass an entrance examination, as well as an interview. The court held that the additional requirement, which started in 2012, violated articles 11(7), 23, 296 (a) (b) and 18 (2) of the 1992 Constitution, as well as Legislative Instrument (LI) 1296 which spells out the criteria or qualification for admission to the school. Per Regulation Two of the LI, qualifications for entry to the school are: being of good behaviour, having a degree conferred by the University of Ghana and any other university approved by the council and passing examinations in seven subjects approved by the council. The court’s decision followed a suit in which the plaintiff, Professor Kwaku Asare, a United States-based Ghanaian law lecturer, went to court in October 2015, challenging the leg...

Testing officers of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and instructors of driving schools have undergone training to upgrade their knowledge on the latest technologies and best practice. The training, designed to equip the participants, selected from across the country, focused on areas that included testing new driver applicants, defensive driving, hazard perception, traffic psychology and customer service. Facilitated by Swedish Roads Consulting Ltd (SweRoads), the training programme was funded by the World Bank as part of Ghana’s Transport Sector Improvement Project. Worrying carnage  At a ceremony to crown the three-week training programme, the Minister of  Transport, Mr Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, said carnage and fatalities on the country’s roads continued to be a worry. “The road safety story of our country is worrying and we continue to record relatively high incidents and fatalities on our roads in spite of...

Has it ever happened to you before? You set your car in cruise control and then fly past the set speed, sending you on a wild ride that required your defensive driving to save the day. It happens and some auto makers in the past blamed that on floor mats or a sticky accelerator pedal, but auto experts point at software malfunction. What is Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC)? It is a device in a motor vehicle which can be switched on to maintain a selected constant speed without the use of the accelerator pedal. Also known as automatic cruise control, active cruise control, cooperative adaptive cruise control, intelligent cruise control or radar cruise control, the technology automatically speeds up and slows down your car to keep a set following distance relative to the car ahead. It also provides some braking. However, it does not replace the braking system. What it does ACC can increase or decrease your car’s speed to maintain a following distance that you set. ...

After a successful launch of Ghana’s first satellite, GhanSat -1, on June 1, 2017, in Florida in the United States of America, the country’s first space technology is set to be deployed into orbit tentatively on July 6 or 7, this year. GhanaSat 1 will be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) into orbit at an estimated altitude of 400 kilometres above the earth atmosphere via the Japan/Kibo Deployment System. On the deployment day, the management of All Nations University College  (ANUC), led by Dr Samuel Donkor, which has it hands deep in the milestone, will join Ghana’s Ambassador to Japan, Mr Parker Allotey, at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Centre to participate in the event. The duo will join others in monitoring the countdown to the deployment of the satellites from the ISS, interviews and a press conference. As part of the event, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to send a congratulatory message vi...