A man who broke into a church and made away with a television set, amplifier and compressor, is to serve time in jail for his crime.
The Juaso Circuit Court has ordered that he should be held in prison for five years.
Yaw Addai Boateng was given the punishment after he pleaded guilty to the offence.
Police Detective Inspector Princeton Peasah Darkwah told the court, presided over by Mr. Yusif Assibey, that the incident happened on June 21, this year.
The Pastor in-charge of the Bethel Presbyterian Church reported the theft to the police and investigations led to his arrest at Oforikrom, in Kumasi.
Boateng told the police that a friend, whose name he only gave as “Taller” had sought his assistance to find a buyer for the stolen items and which he did.
The items, he claimed, were sold to one Mallam at Asokwa, and said he received GH¢50.00 for leading the said friend to the buyer.
IMANI Africa President, Franklin Cudjoe, has expressed some measure of sympathy for Charlotte Osei after she was removed as the Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson.
In his view, Charlotte Osei faced stiff opposition from some of her own staff because she was an “outsider”.
If she had sought some help outside the EC, things may have been different, Mr. Cudjoe suggested on The Big Issue.
“At the end of the day, when all this brouhaha was happening within the Electoral Commission, my conclusions were that, because of the way she came into the office, those established groups there did not necessarily want her. At some point, she became almost an isolationist.”
“She could have sought help, probably from outside and probably spoken to people in authority that these were the challenges she was having,” he said.
“For some of the procurement issues, some of my understanding really is that there were all kinds of sharks prepared to eat from that same thing and she didn’t want it so she had to take certain actions which, unfortunately, has landed her in this trouble.”
Charlotte Osei’s failings largely had to do with procurement infractions.
She was found to have breached procurement laws in the award of several contracts in her three-years at the helm of affairs at the EC.
This led to her, along with two deputy commissioners, being removed from office.
Charlotte Osei was investigated over six separate allegations of various procurement breaches, for which a prima facie case was established.
Ahead of the investigations, it was clear there was bad blood between Charlotte Osei and her two deputies, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwa.
The EC bosses traded accusations after some staff petitioned President Nana Akufo-Addo in July 2017, to remove Mrs. Osei from office over allegations of fraud and financial malfeasance as well as abuse of office.
Charlotte Osei even testified against them and provided incriminating evidence to the investigative committee.
Though he showed some sympathy, Mr. Cudjoe maintains that removing her for procurement infractions was something to celebrate.
Franklin Cudjoe is currently on a crusade against the Ministry of Communications over the $89 million KelniGVG revenue assurance monitoring contract.
Mr. Cudjoe has consistently argued that there were also procurement violations in the awarding of the contract, and wants people punished just as it has been done to Charlotte Osei.
“As Electoral Commissioners Fall on Violations of Public Procurement Act, and the Public Financial Management Act, controversial $178m KelniGVG Contract [over 10 years] must suffer same and more.”
He said he would “be more happy” if other state entities were scrutinised in a similar manner.
“I believe the President. I know the President will take action on KelniGVG, because it is similar, if not worse… I am totally in support in holding this constitution process to its end.
A notorious gangster has escaped by helicopter from a prison in the Paris region, French authorities say.
Redoine Faid escaped after three heavily armed accomplices landed the helicopter in the prison courtyard.
Faid is a well-known criminal in France, where he was imprisoned for a series of robberies.
In 2009 he wrote a book about his experiences of growing up in Paris’s crime-ridden suburbs and graduating into a life of crime.
He claimed to have turned his back on crime, but he was involved in a failed 2010 robbery which killed a municipal police officer.
It was for this crime that Faid was serving a 25-year sentence at the Seine-et-Marne prison.
Faid has escaped from detention previously.
In 2013, he escaped less than half an hour after arriving at a prison in northern France, taking four guards hostage as human shields and destroying a number of doors.
Faid and his accomplices escaped from the prison courtyard – which was unprotected by a net – without injuring anyone, French news website Europe 1 reports.
Shaida Buari Nubi, winner of Miss Ghana 2002 has revealed she is planning to work together with award winning investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas to expose men who demand sex in return for favours.
The sister of actress Nadia Buari in reaction to men who incessantly pressure women for sex, said she has once been a victim of such act when she contested for the crown in 2002.
According to her, when she emerged winner of the beauty pageant in 2002, she never had it easy.
Speaking on Queens Arena, on Angel TV on Saturday, June 30, Shaida said that it took the intervention of God for her to skip the net of men who wanted her on their beds.
“I came across a lot of men who said if you want to get sponsored, let me sleep with you. The sex-for-favour phenomenon abounds. Till today, even within the oil and gas industry [where she works] it’s prevalent,” she said.
The sleek queen who repeatedly professed her Christian faith, on the show, indicated that: “It all boils down to morality. Thankfully, I can beat my chest that I never allowed myself to be used by any man. No man had sex with me in the name of Miss Ghana.”
Shaida Buari’s revelation corroborates what in recent times, former beauty queens of the Miss Ghana pageant have disclosed about the disturbing experiences they were allegedly made to go through by organisers.
The beauty queens have complained of assaults, abuses, exploits and how they are pimped out to preying men, in return for sponsorship deals and monies.
A member of pressure group, OccupyGhana, Sydney Casely-Hayford, has said the immediate past Electoral Commission Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, does not deserve the any sympathy from Ghanaians.
President Nana Akufo-Addo removed Charlotte and two EC commissioners, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwah from office on Thursday for infractions such as procurement breaches and negligence in financial matters.
This follows recommendations by a committee set up by the Chief Justice to investigate petitions against the three top EC officials.
Charlotte according to the report had six allegations against her, four against Amadu Sulley and four against Georgina Opoku Amankwa.”
She had subsequently indicated that she will comment on her dismissal in due time.
Casely Hayford on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, argued that it will be needless for the dismissed EC Chair to put up any defence since the constitutional procedures were duly followed in removing the EC officials from office.
“Charlotte Osei has even gotten no moral right to come and say ‘I’m mourning Paa Kwesi Arthur so I will not talk about myself until I have finished mourning Paa Kwesi Arthur. There is no sympathy call on this one. She should not even try to create any sympathy juices for us to try and salivate on and wait for what she has to say.We are not interested. She has no side of the story.
“The thing has been investigated, we have followed due process. There is a whole article under the constitution spelling out how such matters should be handled.”
Mr. Casely Hayford however argued that the dismissed officials could sue over their dismissal if they feel they had been unfairly treated.
“I think it will be a very good idea, and I will encourage her and her deputies to go to court if they sincerely believe that they have been wrongly treated, they should go to court. It will test our constitution and give us an opportunity to correct these loopholes once and for all and make it work,” said Casely Hayford.
Committee findings on EC officials will be forwarded to AG – Hamid
The Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid, has already assured that government will forward the adverse findings made Charlotte Osei and her two former deputies to the Attorney General for possible prosecution.
“It is the Attorney General who is basically in charge of legal matters, prosecutions and issues like that. So the Attorney General will study the report by herself and I’m sure in due course she will report to the Ghanaian people on the series of measures that she will take in order to ensure compliance with the recommendations of this committee,” Mustapha Hamid said at a press conference on Friday.
Parliament has approved a US$27million tax waiver for independent power producer AKSA Enerji Uretim AS (AKSA) for the provision, on a fast-track basis, of up to 370MW of electricity to the national grid.
The waiver, which reflects only the tax component of the project’s core aspects, covers import duties, import VAT, import NHIL, ECOWAS Levy, Exim Levy, and Special Import Levy among others on project equipment and materials under the emergency power agreement between government and AKSA.
AKSA is to deploy, in the short- to medium-term, a plant of up to 22 units of Wartsila 18V 46 engine generator set (units) with a capacity of between 16 and 17.5MW per unit at Tema.
The AKSA Project is in line with the immediate goal of government to diversify generation plant fuel mix and close the energy supply gap in order to make available stable electricity to consumers and catapult economic growth.
In the interim, AKSA is required to deploy 14 units for the generation of 220MW of power. Upon installation and successful passing of the required operational tests, additional 8 units will be added to increase guaranteed capacity to 370MV.
The implementation of the 370MW AKSA Project is aimed at helping to meet the demand for electricity in Ghana in the short to medium term while arrangements are made to construct medium to long-term power projects for the electricity needs of the country.
Parliament’s Finance Committee observed in a report that one of the key constraints facing the development of private power plants in the country is the lack of a suitable bankable project structure.
Due to the capital-intensive nature of power projects as well as the pressing timelines associated with them, government support is required in order to attract and sustain much-needed private sector investment into the power sector, it said in support of the tax waivers.
Thermal power plants in Ghana are currently constructed with the benefit of an investment promotion programme, under which the importation of equipment, machinery and materials used in connection thereof are allowed in free from Customs duties and other taxes.
The Committee report also noted that the capacity charge for the AKSA Project, made up of both the Capital Recovery cost and the Fixed O&M Charge, stands at 4.500 United States Cents/kWh.
This, it said, compares favourably with other existing and ongoing power plants in operation or under construction in Ghana.
“Under the terms of the executed Emergency Power Agreement (EPA), tax waiver/exemption is a condition precedent for the achievement of commercial operation date.”
When an imam in Nigeria saw hundreds of desperate, frightened families running into his village last Saturday, he decided to risk his life to save theirs.
They were fleeing from a neighbouring village – a mainly Christian community.
They say they came under attack at about 15:00 (14:00 GMT) from about 300 well-armed men – suspected cattle herders, who are mostly Muslims – who started shooting sporadically and burning down their homes.
Some of those who managed to escape ran towards the mainly Muslim neighbourhood nearby where the imam lived, arriving over the next hour.
The cleric immediately came to their aid, hiding in total 262 men, women and children in his home and mosque.
“I first took the women to my personal house to hide them. Then I took the men to the mosque,” the imam told BBC Pidgin.
We have blurred the faces of the imam and the villages, for their own safety.
This was the latest wave of violence to hit Nigeria’s central region where farming communities and nomadic cattle herders often clash – usually over access to land and grazing rights.
The region is prone to religious tension – herders are ethnic Fulani and mostly Muslim, while the farmers are mostly Christian from the Berom ethnic group.
Hundred of people have been killed in 2018, and the tit-for-tat violence has been ongoing for several years. A report from 2016 suggested Nigeria’s pastoral conflict was the cause of more deaths that year than Boko Haram.
Had the imam not intervened, the death toll may have been much higher, as the armed men stormed into the mainly Muslim village in pursuit of those who had fled the mainly Christian village nearby.
One of the villagers described the panicked scenes, saying: “First they attacked a village before us so we ran to the security post.
“But then they started firing towards the security post so we all ran away – even the security personnel.”
When the attackers heard that the villagers had fled towards the mosque, they demanded that the imam bring out those he was hiding.
But the defenceless imam refused to comply – and also refused to allow them entry to the mosque.
He began to plead with the herdsmen, who were threatening to burn down the mosque and his house.
He then prostrated himself on the floor in front of the armed men.
Along with some others in the Muslim community, he began to cry and wail, asking them to leave.
And to their amazement the herdsmen did go – but then set two nearby churches on fire.
They had freely given over the land to the Muslim community, he said.
“Since we have been living together with the Beroms, we have not experienced an ugly incident like the attack on Saturday,” another Muslim leader told the BBC.
Those whose lives were saved by the imam expressed their gratitude and relief.
“Ever since they took us into the mosque, not once did they ask us to leave, not even for them to pray,” said the local chief.
“They provided dinner and lunch for us and we are grateful.”
The villagers stayed with the imam for five days – and have since moved to a camp for displaced people.
More than 2,000 people are now living there, and others are living with relatives and friends.
Those who fled to the mosque cannot return to their village, as there is no security presence there and their homes have been destroyed.
One local Fulani leader told the BBC: “A number of the Fulanis who carried out this attack are foreigners.
“When we try to stop them at the mosque, some of them beat up one of the elders.”
When I visited the village it was completely deserted.
I saw a church that had been attacked – all the chairs had been broken and the pastor’s house set alight. He died in the fire.
The authorities say five rural communities were targeted last Saturday – in an operation that lasted more than five hours. But locals dispute the official figures, saying 11 communities were attacked.
“They killed four of my children,” a 70-year-old man told the BBC, in tears. “And now I do not have anyone to give me food”.
The attackers first looted the houses and shops before setting them ablaze. Not even their livestock were spared.
Witnesses say the attackers chanted “Allahu Akbar” as they raided the buildings.
Security forces did not intervene until around 20:00 (19:00GMT), when operatives from the military task force Safe Heaven arrived to evacuate those affected – mostly women and children.
Force spokesman Adamu Umar said several attacks had been coordinated to take place simultaneously – this, he said, made it difficult for officers to suppress.
A curfew has now been imposed in three parts of Plateau state following the violence.
Pointing to a mass grave, one resident cried as he described the devastation to his village.
“In this community alone 83 persons died,” he said, “see how they are buried”.
“We were born here. Where do they want us to run to?”
The longest-serving MP for Tamale Central constituency, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, has announced he will not seek for re-election when his term expires in 2020.
The former Lands and Natural Resources Minister made the surprise announcement on Saturday, June 30, 2018, at the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium where he was invited to address party members on the need to embrace unity after the just ended constituency primaries.
The extraordinary meeting brought together the newly elected constituency executives of the party and all contenders to plan ahead after a successful election.
“I am the second MP to have served Tamale Central Constituency for a long time, so I have decided; that I, Lawyer Inusah, shall not contest the position again when it is time for primaries for 2020 elections,” he announced to the gathering in Dagbani.
The veteran of 14 years experience in the fourth parliament said he was committed to the National Democracy Congress (NDC) retaining his seat and believed by announcing his decision now potential successors would have enough time to prepare for the election.
“My decision to stand down in 2020 does not mean I will turn my back against this constituency, but I thank you immensely and would want to assure you that we will snatch victory in 2020, but lawyer Inusah will not stand for re-election in Tamale central constituency,” he maintained.
Fuseini, 56, who previously worked as an attorney at a legal firm in Accra, was elected to parliament following a bye-election in 2006 after the incumbent, Wayo Seini who had only occupied the seat for only two years since its creation, resigned and defected from the NDC to the New Patriotic Party.
He has been one of the well positioned and critical Members of Parliament and also a cherished figure in the NDC.
When we talk of highlife music, it is the backbone of Ghana music as it was the genre which was endorsed and enjoyed by our old folks. Most genres of music emanated from highlife and the genre cannot be ignored when it comes to Ghanaian music.
Although the genre is gradually fading, one highlife artiste that still stands tall in the midst of the storm is Heavyn Kofi.
The young talented artiste in a recent interview with browngh.com picked Stonebwoy over Shatta Wale.
In the course of the interview, he was quizzed to choose between Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy.
Although he was reluctant to answer the question, he eventually picked Stonebwoy over Shatta Wale.
According to him, the two artistes are all of the same kind and that he loves them both. He finally picked Stonebwoy as he was left with no choice than to answer.
“Stonebwoy is a real talent and has a silky voice. Shatta Wale is the most creative artiste I have ever seen in Ghana but I will pick Stonebwoy over Shatta Wale. I love them both though so it was really difficult for me to pick one,” he said.
Born Michael Essuman, his style of highlife is a modernized version which is termed as Afro highlife. He is currently promoting his ‘Atene ‘ song which is receiving massive airplay.
Heavyn Kofi who is also known as ‘Wanaba’ is a good songwriter and he can write songs with anything he finds.
Heavyn Kofi started music in 2007 and God is so good he is currently enjoying the sweat of his labour as the hit song “atene” which featured Ayesem is trending.
He hails from Assin-Asamankese (Foso) in the Central Region of Ghana.
According to the talented artiste, he doesn’t look up to any musician but looks up to only himself to do more.
President Akufo-Addo has said the decision to remove the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei and her two deputies was a painful one but it was done within the laws of the land.
He said he acted upon the recommendations of a committee set up by Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo as mandated by the Constitution and there is nothing more to it.
Speaking on the issue for the first time at a town hall meeting with Ghanaian resident in Nouakchott, Mauritania the President said he acted within the law in removing Mr Osei, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwah.
President Akufo-Addo last Thursday removed the EC Chair on grounds of misbehaviour and abuse of office after months of investigations following a petition filed by some workers of the election body.
The decision has been condemned by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) which argues that Mrs Osei’s removal is to feed into a certain agenda by government.
A member of Parliament’s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Rockson Dafiamekpor, for instance, has said prior to for her removal, members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) had wanted her out.
The South Dayi MP said his Assin Central colleague, Kennedy Agyapong, had on numerous occasions vowed that Mrs Osei would be removed.
“The Committee looked at the two stated grounds in the constitutional provision: stated misbehaviour or incompetence…so every other phrase was crafted in such a way to emphasise or hammer on the word misbehaviour,” the NDC legislator argued.
His reference was a leaked report detailing reasons for recommending that Mrs Osei and her two deputies, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Amankwah, be removed from office.
But President Akufo-Addo said he could not do contrary to the recommendation of the committee by the Chief Justice.
He added that the law does not allow him to on his own go ahead and investigate their recommendation so as to disagree with their findings for Mrs Osei and her deputies to continue serving.
The President said the law is clear that whatever the recommendations of the committee, he must work with it.
According to him, it is sad it came to firing the three but he has a job which has to be done dispassionately without favours adding there is no malice to the decision taken.
