Month: October 2011

The Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways, Dr Nii Oakley Quaye-Kumah has rubbished the latest political rankings by Africa Watch Magazine which rated him poorly as a non performing deputy minister.

The deputy minister together with his colleague deputy minister for Women and Children’s affairs Hawa Boya Gariba were rated Fin the category of deputy minister in the latest rankings.

The Africa Watch Magazine barely five months ago rated most of the Ghanaian Parliamentarians poorly, an action that was met with a lot of anger from the legislators.

Speaking to Citi FM, Hon. Nii Oakley Quaye-Kumah stated that the score awarded him must be treated with the contempt that it deserves as the exercise done lacked credibility.

He challenged the magazine to make public the indices that it used in arriving at the conclusion.

Dr Quaye – Kumah who is also the Member of Parliament for Krowor however expressed confidence that the new ranking notwithstanding, he was going to retain his seat.

“I’m not bothered by this new rating, even though my political opponent may use it against me in the impending 2012 elections, my constituents are witnesses to the many developmental projects I have embarked on since becoming the MP for the area’’ he said.

Kwadwo Anim/ghanamps.gov.gh

The Member of Parliament for Ayensuano, Samuel Aye – Paye has proposed the establishment of a committee on Cocoa roads which will see to the construction of good roads in cocoa growing areas across the country.

According to him, most of the roads linking cocoa growing areas are in a bad state even though monies are set aside and given to the Department of Feeder Roads to put the roads in motorable state.

His comment comes in the wake of several pleas from the people of Amenfi West in the Western Region which is one of the major cocoa growing areas in the country on government to repair the broken 82 meter bridge on the Tano River which has been damaged for nearly six months.

Contributing to a panel discussion on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem Programme, Hon. Aye Paye expressed displeasure over the lack of urgency on the part of the government to repair the damaged bridge which has made it impossible to transport cocoa from that areas.

“Government must step up its efforts and ensure that roads in cocoa growing areas are put in good shape, for instance the culvert on the road linking Amanase with Aboabo which are major cocoa growing areas in my constituency is broken for several months and it has not been repaired despite my several attempts at getting the District assembly to work on it’’. He said

“ We as a country must be serious with issues about cocoa since it is the second most highest foreign exchange earner for the country’’ he added.

Hon, Aye Paye said the establishment of the proposed committee which must be made up of officials from the Department of Feeder Roads, Members of Parliament from Cocoa growing areas and MPs serving on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs will to a large extent ensure that the monies allocated for constructing cocoa roads are judicially used.

Kwadwo Anim/ghanamps.gov.gh

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, in conjunction with its sector agencies has adopted measures to restore degraded lands and forests.

Mr Mike Hammah, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, announced this at the Celebration of the International year of Forests at Awutu Bewuenum in the Awutu Senya District of the Central Region.

The Minister said the area’s natural resources would be protected through good forest governance and the implementation of a voluntary partnership agreement between the Government and the European Union.

Additionally, he said, only legally produced wood products could be exported to the EU market or sold locally.

Representatives from about 23 countries across the world participated in the event.

They included South Africa, Mali, Nigeria, Kenya, Switzerland, Namibia, Togo, Angola, Burkina Faso and Germany.

Mr Hammah and the President of Building and Wood Workers International, Mr Klause Wiesehugei, jointly unveiled a plaque to commemorate the day.

Mr Hammah, who is also the Member of Parliament for Effutu, said the Ministry would revise the current forest and wildlife policy of 1994 to lay more emphasis on the non-consumptive value of the forest.

He said the Ministry was increasing ecotourism development through public-private partnership (PPP), biodiversity conservation and ecosystems services.

The Ministry, he said, was developing schemes to promote participatory resource management and exploring the possibility of importing logs from other countries to increase the raw material supplies to the wood industry.

He added that the Ministry was also developing mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of Climate Change and explore options to attract carbon financing.

Mr Hammah said the Ministry was deepening relationship with stakeholders including District Assemblies, Chiefs, and land owners in order to stop land degradation and deforestation.

The Minister appealed to the Building and Woodworkers International and its affiliate bodies and the media to assist in creating awareness on the environment and the need to protect and sustain it.

Mr Alex Bonney, Chairman of Timber and Woodworkers Union of the Ghana Trades Union Congress, urged Ghanaians to take proper care of the land and forests to avoid disasters and desertification.

Mr Ernest Nkansah-Kwarteng, Winneba District Manager of the Forestry Commission, appealed to financial institutions, corporate bodies and the Ghana Tourists Board to help the Commission in its efforts to develop the five ecotourism sites in the District.

GNA

Mr Dan Kwaku Botwe, Member of Parliament (MP) for Okere constituency has urged civil society groups campaigning for the passage of the Right to Information Law (RTI) to allay the fears of the public that the media would use it to harass politicians and public office holders.

He said the coalition on the RTI should therefore intensify its public education by explaining the importance of the law and its effectiveness in participatory democracy.

Mr Botwe said this in Koforidua when he met a team from the Eastern Regional Coalition on the RTI as part of a programme to lobby MP’s in the Region. He indicated that there was public perception that the law would only benefit journalists and called for more education to erase that perception.

Mr Botwe who is a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Information and a former Minister of Information, indicated that withholding of information in any given society did not help progress and so the decision to sensitize the public to get involved was very important.

Mr Botwe emphasized the need for the coalition made up of civil society groups, to explain that journalists already had sources of information and that the law would rather benefit the citizenry.

In his view, technology had made it easier to retrieve information from anywhere; therefore the right to information law was necessary to remove all barricades from accessing information that would help in the political discourse.

He gave the assurance that parliament had been involved through the regional consultative meetings and therefore had ample information to deal with the bill when it came to the floor of parliament for discussion and debate.

Mr Edmund Quaynor, Regional Coordinator of the coalition, said reports from countries such as Ireland showed that the law would be more beneficial to the people than to the media and called on the public to support the coalition.

He added that as part of the public education campaign, the coalition was using radio talk shows and other gatherings to educate and disseminate information about the RTI to arouse the people’s interest in the passage of the bill.

GNA

The Acting Minister of Health, Haruna Iddrisu, has stated that government in the near future will introduce stringent measures in the employment of Doctors to avoid the health professionals ever going on strike.

This follows the refusal of members of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) to call off their strike after the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission’s failure to migrate them onto the Single Spine new pay policy.

The doctors have been on strike for nearly ten days a situation that has been met with condemnation from a section of the public as a couple of deaths have been recorded as other patients have thier conditions worsened due to the doctors absence from their post.

President John Attah Mills last week appealed to the striking doctors to return to work as negotiations continue to resolve the concerns but the doctors have remained adamant.

Other Civil Society Organizations have also added their voices to the call on doctors to resume their duties but they have continued to remain resolute in their decision not to go to work.

However speaking on e.tv’s Breakfast TV programme on Monday, the Acting Minister of Health Haruna Iddrisu disclosed that government has learnt lessons from the ongoing action by the doctors and has resolved to ensure that in the not too distant future new doctors to be recruited to work in the public sector would be required to sign an undertaken that they will never embark on strike action.

He added that government will also require any doctors who will seek government support for his/her post-graduate studies to sign an undertaken not to ever go on strike.

“ I don’t understand why the tax payers monies would be used to train doctors for further studies only for them to turn their backs against these same tax payers when their (doctors) services are needed most , definitely this is unfair to the masses’’ he said.

Haruna Iddisu, urged the striking doctors to heed the President’s appeal to them and also be guided by the Hippocratic Oath that they sworn and return immediately to work as government addresses their concern.

Meanwhile government is scheduled to meet with the GMA, the Fair Wages and Salary Commission today to find out a lasting solution to the ongoing impasse.

Kwadwo Anim/ghanamps.gov.gh

The Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing Mr Alban Sumana Bagbin is predicting a one-touch victory for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in next year’s general elections.

Alban Bagbin says Ghanaians will honour President Mills with a resounding victory because he has kept faith with them.

Speaking to Joy News’ Seth Kwame Boateng, the Housing Minister said he was also optimistic the face-lift the NDC government has given the country will be one of their several trump cards.

But even more importantly, he believes, “His Excellency’s integrity, his honesty, his humility, his love for the people and what he has delivered for the people,” will win the elections for the NDC.

The Member of Parliament for Nadowli said those attributes were capable of winning for President Mills and the NDC the 2012 elections because “Ghanaians are peace-loving…they are people who are very pious, religious and they believe in their God and they are looking for somebody that is God-fearing that can lead the country, maintain the peace [and] develop and improve the quality of life of the people.”

He said guided by history and considering the development on the ground, “definitely I think we are going to pass the 57% (obtained by former president Kufuor in the 2004 election).”

Joy FM

The Majority Leader in Parliament, Cletus Avoka, has warned that government-sponsored bills could suffer embarrassing defeats in Parliament, if the leadership of the ruling party does not begin to take punitive actions against persons violating the party’s ban on campaigning in the NDC-held constituencies.

In August this year, the NDC issued a decree, banning party members aspiring to unseat incumbent party MPs from campaigning until early 2012.

There are, however, growing reports that the ban is being grossly abused, with the NDC leadership showing no signs of punishing offending party members.

Honourable Avoka told Citi News he will take up the issue with the NDC leadership.

“I want to state again, that I am going to meet with the national executives and if there are visible sign of campaigning anywhere, the disciplinary committee will have to take action,” he said.

The ban was recently extended to cover three other constituencies, two of which are held by People’s National Convention lawmakers and an independent legislator.

The ban followed fears that early primaries in those constituencies could jeopardise approval of government policies and programmes in parliament, given that most MPs could abandon the House to fight for retention as NDC parliamentary candidates.

Citifmonline. com

The Member of Parliament for Asokwa, Maxwell Kofi Jumah, has indicted government for deliberately creating new districts in areas that will guarantee the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) political advantage over opposition parties during the upcoming elections in 2012.

Government yesterday announced the creation of 42 new districts, bringing the total number of districts in the country to 212.

However some displeased persons including members of the opposition have expressed their discontent over the creation of particular districts arguing that there were other areas densely populated which needed to be re-demarcation but were over looked for political gains.

In an interview on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem programme on Friday, Hon. Kofi Jumah, with certainty stated that the NDC government, out of the 42 newly created districts, has electoral advantage in 41.

He alleged that the districts were created in constituencies with sitting NDC Members of Parliament; a situation he contends would ensure that the ruling party gets more MPs to represent its interest in Parliament.

Kofi Jumah further chided the government’s rush in creating the new districts when it had not been furnished with population census results from the Statistical Service to determine which areas really needed demarcations.

Responding to Kofi Jumah’s assertions, a Deputy Local Government Minister, Aquinas Quansah, stated that government’s decision to create new districts was based on its commitment to improve development and bring governance nearer to the people.

Kwadwo Anim/ghanamps.gov.gh

The Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Papa Owusu Ankomah has criticized the manner in which the ban on light fishing is being implemented by Government.

According to him, Government failed to carry out adequate education on the practices before introducing those highhanded measures.

His comment comes in the wake of severe criticism against Government by fishermen along the country’s coast, particularly those in Sekondi and Shama in the Western Region.

The ban on light fishing came into force following the passage of the Fisheries LI 1958 in 2010. Some fishermen say they were not adequately consulted before the LI was passed.

The LI prohibits the use of lighting systems for fishing as well as the use of unapproved nets among other orthodox fishing practices.

Government has a Naval Task Force in place to implement the LI, but the fishermen are demanding a review of that legislation. They want Government to regulate light for fishing instead of an outright ban.

In recent times, the naval taskforce in Sekondi has invaded the homes of fishermen to seize generators used to power fishing lights. The confrontation nearly led to a clash as the fishermen in Sekondi, Abuesi and Shama, protested the approach, used by the task force.

They have since threatened to face the task force members head-on in their next attempt. Hon. Papa Owusu Ankomah, MP for Sekondi, told Maxx News the approach by government is not the best. He wants the LI to be reassessed.

“The NDC in its manifesto said they were going to ban the use of light for fishing. So I believe that every Government must stand by what it believes in. If in the implementation of what you otherwise think is a good policy, problems arise, step back and consider it to see how you can move forward. I believe that the whole implementation of the fisheries regulations was not the best. If people have cultivated some practices that you think are not right and so you need to wean them of it, you must first engage them, educate them and provide alternatives; otherwise a well-intended policy will pose problems and that is exactly what is happening today” he noted.

Some fishermen in Sekondi have read political meanings into the task force’s operations but Papa Owusu Ankomah says the exercise must not be politicised.

“It is not partisan and I don’t think that the NPP will try to take advantage of it. Our fisher folks are suffering because they don’t get the catches that they want. So we need to adopt more scientific methods of fishing and that is the duty of Government but that has not been done. If you start from a point that you know better than those who are practicing so you don’t engage them, then you are going to have problems” he added.

It is commonly suggested that Ghana’s fishermen often make their choices in general elections based on happenings in the industry. With election 2012 coming up, government may have to review the LI or decide to remain resolute.

Radio Maxx