Paramount chief for the Bongo Traditional Area Naba Baba Salifu Alemyarum Atamale
The paramount chief for the Bongo Traditional Area Naba Baba Salifu Alemyaruum Atamale has asked law enforcement agencies and district assemblies to adopt some customary laws to make them enforceable to curtail certain excesses in society.
He said that some customary laws are good and ought to be adopted by local assemblies as by-laws so that law enforcement agencies and officials can enforce them to ensure that certain negative attitudes in societies are catered for.
Naba Alemyarum said there was a time in Bongo traditional area that he placed a ban on playing loud music through speakers at funerals to check the rate of teenage pregnancies that the traditional area was recording because this ‘jamz’ usually draw a lot of youth in the rural areas to the funeral ground which leads to teenage pregnancies but he had to quail back because he did not get the needed support.
Naba Alemyarum who was speaking in an interview on Day Break Upper East show on A1 Radio about statistics released by the Ghana Health Service which indicated that the Upper East region recorded 6, 533 cases of teenage pregnancies in 2020, said there was the need to take urgent steps to find solutions to it else it will further increase the suffering level of the region.
The paramount chief again attributed the increasing cases of teenage pregnancy to lack of parental control because parents have to be careful now when punishing their children else the laws that have been enacted against punishing children will deal with it them, which discourages parents from being strict in correcting their children.
He called on stakeholders to come together to find lasting solutions to address the increasing teenage pregnancy cases to safe guide the future of the youth.
The Bolgatanga Municipal Chairman of the Ghana National Association of Teachers, Charles Ateem Atakibire has appealed to the government through the Ghana Education Service(GES) to as a matter of urgency seek first the welfare of teachers in its governing process.
According to Mr Ateem, though past and present governments have contributed immensely to the welfare of teachers, there is the need for more improvement as teachers are usually considered as the eyes of the country.
Mr Ateem who spoke at the 6th quadrennial of 53 districts delegates conference held in Bolgatanga stressed that teachers though have contributed their all to the growth of the country, have received little to their efforts by governments.
Cross-section of participants
Mr. Ateem who is also seeking reelection as the Bolgatanga Municipal chairman of the association noted that in his tuner of office, he was able to work closely with members to ensure that their problems were resolved.
“The four years as a leader of the association was confronted with series of challenges to members with the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. But regardless of that, as an association in the Municipality, we were able to chalk some success. I’m glad to report that when I took over with about 2,500 membership in 2017 April and by the close of the year 2020 December, membership has increased to 3, 300. With this number, the association is not relaxed in finding tune the welfare of its members. ”
Cross-section of participants
The 6th quadrennial of 53 districts delegates conference was slated on May 4th, 2021 to elect new executives to stir the affairs of the association and to bring to bear the quality of life amongst members.
It was held under the theme “Surviving as a reliable and vibrant teacher union in the 21st century: empowering teachers in the Bolgatanga Municipality”.
The Member of Parliament for the Tamale Central constituency, Ibrahim Mohammed Murtala is set to roll out a boreholes project across the constituency which is aimed at installing 50 mechanized boreholes in all the 18 electoral areas of the constituency.
The installations of the mechanized boreholes are in fulfillment of his campaign promise to provide portable drinking water for the people of the constituency should he get elected to represent the people in parliament in the 2020 polls.
Speaking to the media on behalf of the MP, the Tamale Central Constituency Communication Officer of the National Democratic Congress Umar Abdul Razak assured the constituents that the MP will never relent in his promise to the constituents and will continue to put measures in place to improve their welfare.
Tamale Central Constituency Communication Officer of the NDC Umar Abdul Razak
Mr Razak added that sustainability of the boreholes is something that is of paramount importance and hence the managers of the boreholes in collaboration with community members will take a token for the maintenance of the boreholes should they break down.
The Assemblyman for the Buglang Fong Electoral Area, Fuseini Ukasha, who spoke to A1 News at the sideline of the media interaction was excited about the project, indicating it will go a long way to address the scarce water situation in the constituency.
Mr. Fuseini Ukasha said, “the MP should linger the good works he is doing for the people of Tamale central”.
Mohammed Murtala, former MP for Nanton constituency and former Deputy Trade Minister, was elected MP for the Tamale Central constituency in the December 2020 election.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says negotiations with the National Tripartite Committee working on establishing the minimum wage for 2021 has begun.
He made the announcement when he joined organised labour to mark the National May Day celebration at the forecourt of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Accra.
This year’s celebration was marked under the theme: “Economic Recovery in an Era of Covid-19; The Role of Social Partners.”
Last year, the celebration was held virtually in the studios of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in Accra, with no regional parades as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The president, who used the occasion to pay homage to the resilience of workers during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, said the government would ensure that no worker loses his or her job as a result of the economic meltdown occasioned by COVID-19.
He said the government was working to ensure that no worker was worse off as it took measures to sustain the growth and fiscal stability that the country witnessed in the three years before the pandemic struck.
President Akufo-Addo urged organised labour to work with the government and embrace the many changes that would be adopted in the effort to rebuild and develop the economy post-COVID-19.
He revealed that he had taken the decision to freeze salary increments for 2021 for himself, the vice-president, ministers, deputy ministers and all his appointees to reduce the stress on the public revenues “to help hasten our nation’s recovery”.
On the theme of the celebration, the president implored organised labour to be at the forefront of championing the wearing of face masks, as it was, for now, the most effective protection to help keep the economy open.
He said at the moment, the workplace should be the safest place because a further shutdown of businesses would spell doom for the economic recovery efforts of the government.
“The mask gives us the protection that we need to be able to go about daily life and go into our offices and factories and keep the economy open. The workplace should be a safe place, and for the moment, we all have to wear the face mask to make sure that the workplace is safe.”
“One careless person is a danger to all. Some small businesses cannot survive and recover from a shutdown,” he said, adding that it was up to workers, and the general citizenry to keep each other on the straight path and not look to the enforcement officials to prod them to do the right thing.
Nothing that the best prospect to return the economy on track was to vaccinate the adult population, President Akufo-Addo assured that the Government was working hard to secure vaccines. “So we can hope to return our country, our economy and our lives to normalcy.”
He announced that the government would take delivery of 350,000 more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines from the WHO COVAC Facility on Tuesday, May 4, 2021, to continue the inoculation process which began earlier.
The President also disclosed that by May 15, 2021, the government would have procured some 1.3 million Sputnik vaccines from Russia to help in the determination to vaccinate 20 million Ghanaians by the end of the year.
He said the government remained hopeful to achieve the goal of vaccinating every Ghanaian in due course.
The President urged workers to embrace the dramatic changes in the work environment necessitated by the pandemic.
“We are going to redefine our understanding of the workplace. Production methods are going to have to change and be adapted, business owner management and workers will all have to work together to adjust to these new ways of doing things.
“This is the time for organised labour to be asking the hard questions and making sure it can cope with the new way of doing things,” he stressed
There must be an acceptance that the world has changed significantly and the right changes and skills required to survive must be adopted, the President said.
Teachers at Amankwatia M/A Junior High School in Kumasi are compelled to contribute to the purchase of electricity for the running of the school.
Headmaster of the school, Frank Kwakye, bemoaned the impact of power cuts on academic work, especially in the efficient and effective operation of the IT centre.
Though, he is not specific on how much the teachers contribute, he said the situation needs attention from stakeholders.
“In our offices, in our various IT rooms we need electricity to function. And at times, teachers are forced to contribute from their pockets in order to buy electricity to finance school activities,” he said.
He has appealed to the authorities to help end the challenge.
“I have seen that major stakeholders have met here and I am confident that they will help us solve some of these challenging issues,” Mr Kwakye pleaded.
But because teachers are cautioned not to take money from students for school activities, Principal of Jackson college of education wants parents to take upon themselves to address the issues.
Theodosia Jackson said it is not only the mandate of government to see to the development of children, but stressed parents are also encouraged to do same.
“Now, no head teacher or teacher can collect a cedi from a child for school project. As for you PTA you are an association. Let’s contribute our quota and get things done.”
Mr. Kwakye spoke to the media at the commissioning of refurbished school block and landscaping.
Amankwatia M/A Junior High School has 15 teachers, four national service personnel and 240 students.
Its performance in the BECE has significantly improved over the years.
However, the main challenge has been the deteriorating state of the school block.
The headmaster’s office, staff common room and entire block are all nothing to write home about.
It took the intervention of Mrs Jackson to come to the aid of the school.
“Our sole interest is not in the building but in the transformation of lives,” Mrs. Jackson said.
Mrs Jackson called on Ghanaians to contribute to quality education by enhancing the environment for teachers and students.
She urged the entire school body to inculcate maintenance culture to keep the school in a good condition for many people to benefit.
Mr Kwakye commended them for the support and kindness.
He said those who knew the state of the school block would appreciate what Mrs Jackson had done and encourage others to do same.
Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly boss, Osei Assibey-Antwi expressed excitement about the refurbishment.
He spoke about how touched he is by the landscaping and the trees planted in the school.
“It means somebody has bought into my vision of keeping the city clean and green.”
Stakeholders of the school expect improved academic performance with the enhanced learning environment.
Bill and Melinda Gates announce divorce after 27 years, saying “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple”.
“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the pair wrote on Twitter.
The two met in the late 1980s when Melinda joined Bill’s Microsoft firm. They have three children.
They jointly run the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The organisation has spent billions fighting causes such as infectious diseases and encouraging vaccinations in children.
The Gates’ – along with investor Warren Buffett – are behind the Giving Pledge, which calls on billionaires to commit to giving away the majority of their wealth to good causes.
Bill Gates is the fourth wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes.
Some unhappy Ghanaians are venting their spleens over what many describe as a failure on the part of successive governments to improve the lives of the citizenry.
Mostly made up of the youth, tens of thousands of posts have been made on social media highlighting some of these inadequacies.
Despite efforts by government including the Nation Builders’ Corp (NABCO), National Youth Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP) and other commitments towards investing in the growing human capital, some Twitter users say the impact is not felt on the ground.
Dominant in the sentiments shared on Twitter are rising youth unemployment, dilapidated health system, skyrocketing home-renting structure, poor road networks among others.
“This is the right time for us to stand up and come together as one people to speak and let them [government] know that we are tired,” Joshua Boye-Doe, a social media user and initiator of the #FixTheCountry campaign said.
Coupled with corruption, erratic power and water supply, the users say the development has compounded their challenges and made life difficult for the average young Ghanaian to make a decent living.
Topping the trends for the past 24-hours, the ‘#FixTheCountry’ topic has seen many celebrities joining the fray as part of an effort to hold government accountable in the areas to safeguard the future of the citizenry.
An online petition has also been launched to aid this cause with nearly 2,000 signatures so far.
Below are some of the over 240,000 tweets so far made;
A Ghana participation programme, known as the Ghana Somubi Dwumadie, has awarded evidence and effectiveness grants for mental health and disability inclusion to nine civil society organisations (CSOs) in the country.
This is to ensure that persons with disability, including mental health disabilities, are in the lead on approaches to improve their wellbeing, socio-economic outcomes, and rights.
A statement issued by the Ghana Somubi Dwumadie, copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the grants, totalling almost GHS 7,000,000, were funded by the United Kingdom Government through UK Aid.
It is made up of four large grants receiving up to GHS 600,000 per year for nearly three years, and five small grants of up to GHS 200,000 each for 12 months.
The statement said awardees would provide support and empower persons with disability (PWDs), including mental health disabilities, to participate fully in their communities and have their voices heard and incorporated in policies and programmes that affected them directly.
It said the nine recipients were a selection of organisations of PWDs, self-help groups and other CSOs working in the disability and mental health space in Ghana.
The statement said the support was in line with Ghana’s call for better disability inclusion and greater investment in mental health.
It said the new grant was expected to support in removing the barriers, which prevented PWDs, including people with mental health conditions, from reaching their full potentials.
The Ghana Somubi Dwumadie is a four-year programme with a specific focus on mental health, run by an Options’ led consortium consisting of BasicNeeds-Ghana, Kings College, London, Sightsavers International and Tropical Health.
It focuses on four key areas, two of which are; promoting stronger policies and systems that respect the rights of people with disability, including people with mental health disabilities, and scaling up high quality and accessible mental health services.
The other two are reducing stigma and discrimination against PWDs, including mental health disabilities, and generating evidence to inform policy and practice on the effectiveness of disability and mental health programmes and interventions.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and-Daniel Yao Domelevo
President Akufo-Addo has reiterated that the former Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo was not hounded out of office.
According to him, Mr Domelevo’s resignation was due to his attainment of the national retirement age of 60.
“There’s a time for retiring which is prescribed by statue not my making. If you are 60 years old you’re suppose no longer to be able to work in the public service,” he said.
On the night of March 3, the President retired the anti-graft campaigner who had just returned from a 167-day forced leave.
In a letter signed by Nana Asante Bediatuo Wednesday, the Secretary to the President said “The attention of the President of the Republic has been drawn to records and documents made available to this Office by the Audit Service, that indicate that your date of birth is June 1, 1960, and that in accordance with article 199 (1) of the Constitution, your date of retirement as Auditor-General was June 1, 2020,” the letter said.
This move was heavily criticized by a section of the public.
These include civil society organisations who have highlighted the have highlighted its propensity to stifle the anti-corruption fight.
But in an interview with CNN on Monday, the President said “the Auditor-General, like me… should be some of the first [persons] to recognize the laws in our country.”
The National Security has busted a-13-member gang involved in the printing and distribution of fake currency notes to unsuspecting victims, mostly foreign nationals.
A statement issued by the National Security Secretariat, copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the gang, led by one Yassei Alia, a 45-year-old Syrian resident in East Legon, and owner of Hardford Auto Service in Accra, together with Danjuma Zakaria alias Alhaji Mohammed, 49 and resident of Tema West, were rounded up in a warehouse within the premises of NacCharter Cargo and Freight Company, near KLM offices within the Kotoka International Airport, on Monday, April, 27 at around 5:30 pm.
Freshly printed $10,000 bundles of fake $100 notes concealed in two large metal trunks and a suitcase were retrieved from the warehouse.
The statement said the amount was estimated to be over $5 million United States dollars.
Other suspected accomplices arrested during the operation include Esther Omozeea, Emad Aldalhi, Kamal Mohammed, Abdulai Yakubu Osman and Samuel Ababio.
The remaining are John Denyo, Desmond Delali Dumenu, Alike Happiness, Prosper Chukwu, Victor Israel, Padi Christian Holdbrook.
It said in their caution statements, Yassei and Mohammed, who drove to the warehouse in the former’s car, denied knowledge of the deal.
It noted that, however, when questioned separately, Yassei, who held a Syrian passport, a Republic of Guinea-Bissau diplomatic passport, and a Nigerian national driver’s licence issued in Ogun State, indicated that he had gone to the warehouse to have a discussion with one Kojo, an alleged cargo dealer and operator of the premises, regarding a V8 engine the latter was to import on his behalf, while Alhaji Mohammed stated that he had gone to solicit for financial help from Kojo to enable him to procure a vehicle from Holland.
The statement said further, while Yassei claimed Kojo sat in a meeting with them on the said day, Alhaji Mohammed indicated that Kojo was not at the premises at the time of their visit and that while waiting for him, they were arrested.
It said incidentally, two of the suspects interrogated separately corroborated Mohammed’s claim that Kojo was not seen at the premises on the said day.
“The group’s modus operandi, according to intelligence, suggest that they lure unsuspecting victims with claims that they have access to millions of US dollars in Libya,” the statement said.
“Victims are given genuine sums of US dollars to spend for free, as a proof of the genuineness of the deal.”
It noted that once convinced, victims were requested to deposit huge sums of USD dollars as freight charges to aid the shipment of the said dollars to the victims.
It said upon receipt of amount, the suspects package fake dollars stashed in between a few hundreds of genuine notes, for onward delivery to their victims.
It said shortly after the arrest, one Bandoh, Alhaji-Ahmed, alias Alhaji Bamed, owner of Bamed Travel and Tours, who claims to be a Presidential Staffer at the Castle, and a client of Yassie, drove to the National Security headquarters, verbally assaulted the leader of the operation, and vowed to free the suspects.
It said the aggressive conduct of Alhaji Bamed, suggested that he might be involved in the deal, particularly when investigations are ongoing.
It said officials of National Security had assured Ghanaians that the Government was determined to rid the country of fake currency syndicates and warned that persons involved in the illegality would be arrested and dealt with accordingly.
The National Security has therefore urged the public to report suspicious activities of persons to security agencies to aid their arrest and prosecution.
