Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

More than 200 inmates of the Nsawam Prisons have benefited from an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) programme . The Nsawam Prisons is among 23 others where the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) is supporting the Ghana Prisons Service to equip prisoners with information technology skills. Currently, the 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 Prisons, 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 di...

The fire outbreak that consumed medical supplies at the Central Medical Stores (CMS) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in Tema has been estimated to cost the country about GHc237.7 million. Even worse is the fact that the facility was not insured to recoup the loss. Investigations While declining to make a definite statement on whether the Ministry of Health suspected arson, the sector Minister, Dr Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah, told journalists in Accra that the ministry had asked the National Security to initiate a full-scale investigation into the fire outbreak. “This investigation, together with the investigation that the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) is undertaking, will inform us as to what happened,” he said. He gave an assurance that the ministry would follow the incident to its logical conclusion and anybody found culpable in the incident would be made to face the full rigours of the law. The Health Minister said prior to the fire outbreak, a committee had been instituted by...

The National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has raised alarm about the increasing pedestrian knock downs in the country. According to the commission, in 2014 alone, 2,571 people were knocked down by vehicles that caused 13,133 road accidents in which 11, 328 were injured and 1856 died. The accidents involved 20,442 vehicles. NRSC 2015 Work Plan meeting Presenting the figures at the Greater Accra NRSC 2015 Work Plan meeting in Accra yesterday, the Greater Accra Manager of the commission, Mr Daniel H. Wuaku, said the Greater Region had now taken over from the Ashanti Region as the region with the highest contributor to national accident figures. The programme was meant to review the commission’s performance last year and discuss the strategies for this year. It brought together participants from institutions such as  the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA),Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service  the Department of Urban Roads (DUR...

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) missed its revenue collection target by three per cent last year. The Commissioner-General of the authority, Mr George Blankson, said GHc17.07 billion was collected from the targeted GHc17.61 billion. The amount, however, represented a significant increase over the 2013 figure of GHc13.16 billion. Mr Blankson was speaking at a press soiree organised by the authority to apprise the media of developments in the GRA last year and the prospects for 2015. Reasons for shortfall He listed a litany of challenges that contributed to the inability of the authority to achieve its target, including deferment of the implementation of the VAT on fee-based financial services, inflation, foreign exchange fluctuations and the crippling energy crisis which affected output, productivity and the profit levels of businesses. “The fall in the prices of minerals on the global market led to lower incomes and profits, staff lay-offs in the mining sector and negatively af...

The foggy weather the country is experiencing as a result of the severe harmattan has taken its toll on the domestic airline industry.  The domestic airlines have either suspended or cancelled flights to the major cities of Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale. The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMET) last week advised pilots and motorists to exercise extreme caution to curtail potential accidents resulting from poor visibility.  Antrak and other local airlines have suspended or cancelled their flights because of poor visibility. The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), on December 8, last year, issued a similar weather alert to all pilots, indicating that the hazards associated with harmattan dust haze could affect flight operations.  Flights to and from Tamale have been temporarily suspended following the harsh harmattan conditions prevailing in the Northern Regional capital.  The situation has prevented flights from taking off and landi...