Month: September 2011

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forestry on Thursday called on Zoil Services, auxiliary waste management company Zoomlion Limited, to pay wages of their workers in the Upper East Region.

Zoil Service has been contracted by the Ministry of Lands and Forestry Commission to undertake the National Forestation Programme and it in turn recruited workers to carry out the exercise.

Mr Albert Abongo, the Member of Parliament for Bongo, said this at separate functions at Tangara and Bongo Feo when he and the committee members visited the sites.

He said it was bad for people to work for more than six months without being paid and added “this programme is very dear to the government and every attention must be given to the project to ensure that it succeeds.”

The workers, who are cultivating 700 hectares out of the 800 hectares originally targeted, complained of lack of logistics such Wellington boots, rain coats, bicycles and cutlasses.

“About five of my workers have been beaten by snakes because of lack of Wellington boots. We also have to commute long distances to the farm and this is affecting our work”, Mr Malik Agongo, the supervisor in charge of Bongo Feo community, told the Parliamentary Committee.

The Committee assured the workers that their concerns would be addressed and urged them to continue to work whilst their concerns were being addressed.

Mr Andrew Adjei–Yeboah, a Member of the Committee, appealed to the workers to see the project as their own since they stood a good chance of reaping benefits from it.

He told them that it could help them draw firewood and improve upon farming and also reverse the environmental degradation of the area.

Mr Adjei–Yeboah expressed disappointment about the way the programme was being implemented by Zoil and said there was the need for the Forestry Commission to review the contract and to make amendments if need be since the government attaches importance to it.

The Paramount Chief of Bongo, Baba Salifu Aleemyaruum, commended the government for initiating the programme and said it would help reduce desertification associated with the three northern regions.

He said he was also addressing the environmental degradation in the area through his NGO, the “Green Bongo for Sustainable Development.”

Baba Salifu Aleemyaruum said he together with sub chiefs had mounted advocacy programmes against desertification and passed by laws on bush burning.

He suggested to the Parliamentary Committee to introduce what he called ‘Food for Work Programme’ in communities to encourage them to engage in more tree planting.

GNA

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forestry in its bid to stop the spate of illegal mining in the various forest reserves has paid a visit to the Sui River Forest Reserve to ascertain the extent of illegal farming and encroachment in the forest.

The five member team was made up of Albert Abongo, Albert Kwasi Zigah, Andrews Adjei-Yeboah, Ofosu Asamoah and Dr Joses Asare-Akoto.

The leader of the delegation Mr Abongo, advised the communities around the reserve not to go beyond the boundaries allocated to them.

He appealed to them to desist from felling trees without the necessary permit from the Forestry Service Division of the Forestry Commission.

He said he was unhappy that the communities were expanding into other areas of the reserve not allocated to them.

Mr Abongo urged the Forest Services Division to frequently interact with the settlers and educate them to do the right thing.

Mr Adjei-Yeboah said the visit of the committee was the result of petitions against encroachment by civil society organizations.

He appealed to the courts to speed up proceedings on the numerous cases of encroachment of forest reserves pending before them.

Mrs Linda Opoku, Western Regional Forestry Officer, proposed the establishment of environmental courts to handle cases of encroachment and illegal farming in forest reserves.

She said re-settlement of communities on the fringes of the reserve would be the best method to check encroachment.

The Member of Parliament for Jomoro, Madam Samia Yaba Nkrumah has presented hospital equipment worth 20,000 dollars to the Half Assini Government hospital.

The items include one carton Alcohol and detadine each, 2 cartons scrub brushing and skin prep Kits, 20 carton Epitural and spinal needles, one carton sutures nutritional supplement fomala and 2 fluids.
The rest were 2 canes, three walkers, two pair of crutches, two wheel chairs, one carton bed linens, towels and non-sterile exam gloves.

Madam Nkrumah said the items were donated by the Vergual Foundation, a non governmental organisation in the United States of America for women in parliament.

She said the donation by Vergual was to encourage women in parliament with their work hence the gift to be given to any public institutions in their constituencies.

Madam Nkrumah who is the newly elected National Chairman of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP), used the opportunity to thank the NGO for its kind gesture and appealed to authorities of the hospital to use the items judiciously.

She promised to provide the hospital with a mechanized bore-hole, an ambulance and a shed before the end of her tenure of office.

Mr Godswill Domie, Administrator of the hospital who received the items on behalf of the hospital, thanked Madam Nkrumah for coming to the aid of the hospital.
Nana Ackah Azane Etwebewu, Omankrado of Half Assini who deputized for chief of the town, appealed for the fencing of the hospital to prevent animals from entering its environs.

Source: GNA

With barely 15 months to the 2012 presidential and legislative elections, evidence is emerging that the people’s representation in the legislature will be increased by 21 seats from the current 230 seats.

Though no official announcement has been made, The Chronicle can report authoritatively that the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, the body that manages and conducts all public elections in the country, will begin the onerous task of demarcating the 21 additional constituencies any moment from now.

According to the EC, the distribution of the new constituencies will based on the 2010 Population Census on a regional basis, as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution.

Even before the new demarcation comes into force, some political parties have raised concern, challenging the EC to stick to the confines of the Constitution, and not import any conventions to aid it in the demarcation exercise.

Article 47 (1) of the Constitution states: “Ghana shall be divided into as many constituencies for the purpose of election of Members of Parliament as the Electoral Commission may prescribe, and each constituency shall be represented by one Member of Parliament.” It goes further to state in Article 47 (2): “No constituency shall fall within more than one region.”

Under 47(3) “the boundaries of each constituency shall be such that the number of inhabitants in the constituency is, as nearly as possible, equal to the population quota.”

Article 47 (4) states: “For the purposes of clause (3) of this article, the number of inhabitants of a constituency may be greater or less than the population quota, in order to take account of means of communication, geographical features, density of population and area, and boundaries of the regions and other administrative or traditional areas.”

According to 47 (5) “the Electoral Commission shall review the division of Ghana into constituencies at intervals of not less than seven years, or within twelve months after the publication of the enumeration figures, after the holding of a census of the population of Ghana, whichever is earlier, and may, as a result, alter the constituencies.

“Where the boundaries of a constituency established under this article are altered as a result of a review, the alteration shall come into effect upon the next dissolution of Parliament,” states Article 47 (6)

For the purposes of this article, “population quota” means the number obtained by dividing the number of inhabitants of Ghana by the number of constituencies into which Ghana is divided under this article,” according to Article 47 (7)

Per the EC’s proposal, the new demarcations will see the Western Region, which has a land mass of 9,236 square miles and a total population of 2,325,595 (based on the 2010 population census), having two additional seats added to the current 22 Members of Parliament representing the region.

The Central Region, which has a land area of 3,815 square miles and a population of 2,107,209, will also benefit from two additional seats, bringing the total to 21. The region, currently, is represented by 19 MPs, while the Greater Accra Region will get three additional representations in the august House.

At the moment the Greater Accra Region commands 27 seats. According to the 2010 Population Census, the Greater Accra Region is populated by 3,909,764 people, occupying a total land area of 995 square miles.

The Volta Region, with a land mass of 7,943 square miles and a current population of 2,099,876, is billed to have two new seats to the current 22 seats, while the Eastern Region, with land of 7,698 square miles, and a population of 2,596,013, will also have two additional seats. The Eastern Region has 28 Members in the House. This will increase to 30 after the 2012 elections.

The Ashanti Region, with a land area of 9,417 square miles and a current population of 4,725,046, is billed to have four new seats in Parliament, in addition to the 39 seats currently in the legislature.

The Brong Ahafo Region, with a current population of 2,282,128 and covering a land area of 15,273 square miles, will have two new seats aside the 24 seats currently in Parliament. This will raise the number of MPs from the Brong Ahafo Region to 26.

The Northern Region, with a land area of 27, 175 square miles and current population of 2,468,557, is also billed to have 2 new seats in addition to its 26 old seats in Parliament, while the Upper East, with a total land area of 3,516 square miles and a current population of 1,031,478, will have a solitary seat added to the 13 seats.

The Upper West Region, with a land area of 7,032 square miles and current population of 677,763, will also have one additional seat to the current 10 seats.

The country owes this formula to the Siriboe Committee of 1967 that examined constituency demarcation and other electoral issues. According to the Chairman of the EC, Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan, the EC had found no better one to replace the formula set out by the Siriboe Committee.

However, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Manhyia, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who appears unhappy with the creation of new constituencies, is challenging the EC to stick to the confines of the law during the demarcation exercise.

“The EC does not have the power to import any laws outside that of the Constitution to aid it in the demarcation of the new constituencies,” he stated.

He told The Chronicle that the conventions adopted by the EC in demarcating new constituencies do not ensure a fair exercise, in that some constituencies end up having more population than others.

“The problem is that if one constituency has 200,000 people and another 30,000 people, then it means that all votes are not equal. And all votes are sacrosanct; all votes are equal. So, if all votes are equal, and every vote should carry the same weight, when you translate the vote into representation, it should be almost the same, or else you have this perverted.”

“When we go to Parliament, every one receives the same salary; when it comes to the Common Fund, we all get the same; National Health Insurance Fund, we all get the same; GETFUND, we all get the same; and everything for MPs are all the same. MPs are equal, and don’t have a senior MP and a junior MP, and we don’t have an MP who represents a bigger landmark and one who represents a smaller landmark. We don’t do that, because we are the people’s representatives.

“So, if there are two MPs, where one represents 100,000 people and another one represents 10,000, that is another form of electoral gerrymandering,” he added.

He told The Chronicle that the creation of new constituencies was not the best, since even wealthy economies around the world have put a stop to the creation of new constituencies, since it would have a heavy burden on the finances of the country.

“We have to decide on the upper limit of constituencies in the country,” he added.

He called for an early IPAC (Inter Party Advisory Committee) meeting to enable all the political parties partake in the process.

Source: Chronicle