Members of the Gomoa West District Assembly have appealed to members of parliament (MPs) to attend meetings of their various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.

Expressing their concern about the failure of MPs to attend assembly meetings at the second ordinary meeting of the assembly at Apam on Tuesday, the members urged the MPs not to wait till election year before they identify themselves with the assemblies.

“We expect you to come and report to us what happens in Parliament,” the assembly members said and asked; “how do we hear what goes on in Parliament if you as the representatives of the people disregard us and feel the assemblies are too small for you to participate in their deliberations?”

Commenting on the feelings of the members, Mr Anthony Eyiah Quansah, Presiding Member of the assembly, said failure to attend assembly meetings by an MP did not pertain in Gomoa West alone but was becoming a canker in the assemblies nationwide.

He appealed to the Speaker of Parliament and the leadership of Parliament to take up the matter before it got out of hand.

Mr Quansah said the district assembly concept was structured along that of Parliament, therefore, it was incumbent on parliamentarians to attend assembly meetings to see whether the right thing was being done in the assemblies.

Source: GNA

The dependence on rain-fed agriculture across the country makes farmers in Ghana particularly vulnerable to climate change.

For instance, the high levels of dependence on agriculture for livelihoods in the north in particular, further makes it the most vulnerable region to climate change.

The area is also climatically sensitive with low, decreasing rainfall and frequent recurring droughts making the situation more serious.

Mr Emmanuel Salu, Director and Head of Environmental Education Department of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said this at a workshop on Environmental and Climate Change Policy Node held in Accra.

The workshop, organised for stakeholders and institutions by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)- Science, Technology, and Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) in collaboration with the Alliance for Green Revolution Africa (AGRA) was on the theme: “Enhancing the Adaptation of Smallholder Farmers Especially Women to Climate Change for Improved Agricultural Production in Ghana”.

Mr Salu said there had been a visible evidence of climate change in Ghana and that included rising temperatures in all ecological zones, rainfall levels and patterns increasingly erratic, streams drying up having adverse impacts on livelihoods, health, nutrition and hydropower generation.

He said majority of farmers interviewed had also expressed the belief that temperature had become warmer with the timing of the rains becoming irregular and unpredictable. There were also increased droughts.

He said there was  the need for government and other stakeholders to implement adaptable and mitigation strategies to address the situation since any change in crop yields and distribution would affect livelihoods.

Mr Salu suggested that adaptation strategies should include development or acquisition and use of drought varieties, the use of early maturing genotypes, use of conservation agriculture including low tillage, altered planting dates to suits changing cropping cycles and an increased use of irrigation.

He called on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to dialogue with scientists, farmers, development partners and financial institutions on how to develop the sectors that were sensitive to climate vulnerability and sustainable exploitation.

Dr Nelson Obirih-Opareh, Project Coordinator of Environment and Climate Change Policy Action Node, said  the project had the life span of two and half years starting from November 2012 and ending in May 2015.

He said the overall goal of the project was to improve food security and reduce income volatility for smallholder farmers by enhancing their adaptation to climate change and variability in the breadbasket regions of Ghana.

Dr Kwasi Ampofo, Director of Alliance for Green Revolution Africa (AGRA),  said the institution “works to achieve a food secure and prosperous Africa through the promotion of rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers, particularly, women farmers, majority of who produce most of Africa’s food with minimal resources and little government support”.

He said AGRA wanted to ensure that such smallholders had access to seeds and healthy soils; access to markets, information, financing, storage and transport; and policies that provided them with comprehensive support.

“Through developing Africa’s high-potential breadbasket areas, and boosting farm productivity across more challenging environments, AGRA works to transform smallholder agriculture into high productive, efficient, sustainable and competitive system, while protecting the environment.”

Mr Ampofo explained that the Environment and Climate Change Policy Action Node was one of the five main policy Action projects in Ghana and in other parts of Africa to help AGRA achieve its mission of food security and prosperity among smallholder farmers.

Source: GNA

Samsung Tuesday confirmed that BBM™, the mobile social network, is now available to Samsung smartphone users, in Sub-Saharan Africa, days ahead of the official rollout to other branded Android™ devices.

This limited time offer is available to Samsung customers until 20h00 on 24 October 2013.

“The anticipation is high. We are delighted that we are able to offer our loyal customers an advantage to download BBM. We are confident users will enjoy the Samsung experience to which they have become accustomed to,” said George Ferreira, VP and COO of Samsung Electronics Africa.

BBM will form part of Samsung’s Messaging Hub as a complementary addition to the current slate of messaging services that Samsung customers already enjoy, including Whatsapp, WeChat and Samsung’s propriety messaging service ChatON, which now has a global subscriber base of over 100 million users.

“We are continuously enhancing our offering to ensure our users benefit from high quality innovations and partnerships to live a connected lifestyle of communicating and sharing with friends, family and colleagues every day,” continues Ferreira.

BBM offers Samsung GALAXY smartphone users an extensive range of features, including BBM chat (one to one or multi-person chat), BBM Groups that let customers invite up to 30 friends to chat together, as well as the ability to share photos and voice notes.

“We are excited to work with Samsung to launch BBM to their customers in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President for BBM at BlackBerry.

“Samsung customers will discover what makes BBM so popular – they’ll enjoy a fast, reliable and engaging mobile messaging experience.”

BBM is now available for Samsung GALAXY Android smartphones for free from the Samsung App Store. Due to the high demand and volume, certain measures have been put in place to ensure a smooth roll-out across the Sub-Saharan African continent:

Installation guidelines:

Visit BBM.com to be connected to the BBM page in the Samsung App Store;

Download the BBM app from the Samsung App Store;

Once the app has been installed, open it and enter an active email address. This will ensure that the user is placed in a queuing system;

Notification will be sent to users via that email once they have reached the front of the line, and they will then be able to launch the application and officially sign-in and start using BBM.

The BBM app is compatible with GALAXY and other Samsung smartphone devices that run Android 4.0 (Ice-Cream Sandwich) and above. Data charges may apply, as determined by local operators and service providers.

For more information on BBM for Samsung Android devices, please visit www.bbm.com. For customer service or technical assistance: http://www.bbm.com/support/android

Source: Myjoyonline.com

Leading Communication network MTN on Thursday organized a Spelling Bee Challenge for pupils in sixteen selected schools in the Upper East Region. The competition which was keenly contested by pupils of the schools hoped to sharpen the intellects of the pupils.

Portfolio Advisor of MTN Ghana, Northern Territory, Abdulahi Hussein Yahya said since MTN’s partnership with the Spelling Bee Challenge, the organization has supported students from deprived communities in the competition. He indicated that MTN had partner with Young Educators Foundation in the spelling bee competition to enhance confidence in the pupils.

“MTN Ghana Foundation is committing a total amount of sixty four thousand cedis (64,000.00) as our contribution towards this project, we hope our support in this area will help Ghana in attaining the Millennium Development Goals 2 & 8 that is to achieve universal primary education and developing a global partnership for development by 2015”.

The six best spellers to represent the region at the national level are Apania Latifa of Saint Clement Primary School, Atinga Solomon of Anowaam Primary School, Tufailu Shakira of Straight-Way Educational Complex. The rest are Ayamga Bright, Musah Rahaman and Awumbila Seth all of the Fountain Gate International School. At the end of the competition, the six best spellers took home exercise and note books, MTN branded T-shirts and products from Indomie, organizers of the program.

By: Joshua Asaah | A1radioonline.com | Ghana

Some Electricity Consumers have expressed disquiet regarding how fast the units on their house meters runs since the announcement of new tariffs increment which came into effect on the 1st of October.

They claim purchase of GHc 10 and GHc 20 units no longer reflect on their meters, but the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has been offering some explanations.

ECG says the current challenges faced by consumers which have to do with their prepaid metering system are as a result of the fact that consumers were paying retrospective charges in accordance to the new tariffs.

In justifying the reasons for which the ECG would want consumers to pay retrospective charges, Mr. Adjei Larbi, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the state owned company disclosed that, such a decision came about in the bid to prevent “rich people” from buying a lot of credits before the deadline to take undue advantage of the system.

“….that is how it is when it comes to tariffs. One cannot decide to use his credit to its fullest after buying it. That is what the law says. And we are only following the law and not what we think”.

“…if the law had not permitted that, rich people would buy credit that could last them a whole year onto their meters,” he expounded.

Mr. Adjei Larbi was reacting to concerns raised by users of the prepaid meters on Me Man Nti a flagship political talk-show program on NEAT FM.

Source: Peacefmonline.com

General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie says  he is the anointed scribe for the party.

He said nobody in the NPP can match up his courage, hard work and dedication in party as a General Secretary.

Sir John as he is popularly called is seeking to retain his position. But he is being challenged by some party bigwigs like Yaw Boabeng Asamoah and possible former presidential spokesperson Kwabena Agyapong.

But an optimistic Owusu Afriyie says the rank and file of the “elephant” family will not make a mistake of replacing him at the NPP’s upcoming delegates congress in 2014.

He maintains that his good works for the past years as General Secretary follows him everywhere he goes.

Sir John bemoaned the needless allegations leveled against decent people in the name of electoral contest.

Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie advised all persons interested in the various party positions to embark on issues based campaign in order not to discredit people.

Meanwhile the timetable for the NPP’s internal elections are as follows: Polling stations elections 30th November, constituency elections 14 December 2013, with exception of Eastern Region which will take place on 15th December.

Also all regional elections shall take place on January 25th 2014 across the country; while the crunch national executives’ elections come off on 1st March 2014.

Source: Myjoyonline.com

The Chief of the Gambibgo traditional area in the Bolgatanga municipality has reiterated his numerous calls for a bridge to be built over a river which often cut his community and other communities like, Pologo, Yarigabisi, and Boosiyeh from the Bolgatanga town during rainy season.

Naba Sadik Akolmolga Anun-egra made this appeal when the executive director of the Veteran Administration Ghana, Colonel Chris Nutakor paid him a courtesy call on Tuesday. Naba Anun-egra said, he is appealing to Non-Governmental Organisations, corporate bodies and the authorities concerned to come to the aid of the people.

He mentioned that at least, two to three are lost every rainy season in the river which he said is a worry.

Meanwhile Colonel Nutakor said he was happy that some ex-service men and women are being made chiefs and queen mothers in some parts of the country. According to him, these are signs that the leadership skills taught them during military training is still in them.

He called on the people of the community to fully support the chief to develop the area.

 Colonel Nutakor paid a courtesy call on the Gambibgo Chief to in order to familiarize himself with the chief who is a retired Army officer from the Ghana Armed Forces. He said the chief had so worked hard during his days in active service in the Army and pledged to give the chief a car to help him his movements.

By: Cletus Adugbire | A1radioonline.com | Ghana

The influx of foreign furniture in Ghana is causing the businesses of many local woodworkers to fold up. For this reason members of the Woodworkers’ Association of Ghana in the Upper East Region have gone through a day’s workshop aimed at improving the quality of their products and their entrepreneurial skills, to help them beat competition from foreign counterparts.

In all, 220 woodworkers including carpenters and joiners from across the region participated in the workshop which was sponsored by Ashfoam.

National General Secretary for the Woodworkers’ Association of Ghana, Abdullah Bin Abubakar speaking to A1 News, said keen competition in the furniture market as a result of the importation of furniture from Asia is the bane of woodworkers in Ghana and the training will properly position the participants to favorably compete in the furniture market.

Communications Manager for Ashfoam, Joe Ampem-Darko Antwi said Ashfoam as a company took the sponsorship of the training as a corporate social responsibility, especially since woodworkers mostly use Ashfoam products to manufacture furniture.

By: Albert Sore | A1radioonline.com | Ghana

1500 children from the Bongo, Nabdam and Talensi districts of the Upper East Region who were out of school have began a Complementary Basic Education program to prepare them to get into regular schools.

The Ghana Complementary Basic Education (CBE) program is a functional literacy program by the Government of Ghana and its development partners (DFID) for children between the ages of 8  and 14 years who are not in school to  gain access to formal  school through  literacy classes in their own communities.

The intervention is in line with the Ghana Government’s effort to meet the MDG 2; which demands of countries to make it possible for children of school going age to have universal primary education.

It is implemented by civil society actors in partnership with communities with oversight responsibility by the District Education Offices, District Education Oversight Committees (DEOC) and District Assemblies. In the Upper East Region, Afrikids Ghana, a child rights centered NGO is government’s partner in the CBE program.

Richard Amoah works with Afrikids Ghana and is the coordinator for the complementary basic education program. He told A1 News that the program also aims at providing access to Complementary Basic Education (CBE) for 120,000 out-of-school children and to build Government’s capacity to take on this role.  It will be implemented over a 3-year period (2013-2015).

In the Nabdam district where the program has already started, parents are giving their full support to the implementers of the program.

Nadam District Director of Education, Edward Azure, says the CBE program is a timely intervention for children in the district who are out of school.

By: Albert Sore | A1radioonline.com | Ghana