Month: February 2012

Mr. James Avedzi, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ketu-North, has appealed to parents who can afford their wards education to stop scrambling for the MP’s Common Fund scholarships.

He said the fund is solely for brilliant students whose parents or guardians are incapable of financing their education.

The practice of competing with deprived students and using political influence and blackmail to obtain the scholarship were undermining the reason for its establishment, the MP note.

Mr. Avedzi gave the advice at the second John Gatsi Educational Competition Awards ceremony at Tadzewu.
He explained that the MP’s Common Fund Scholarship was meant to offer educational opportunities for the poor.

He said there are over 400 applications for scholarship before him and that since 2005, about 1000 students had been assisted under the scheme.
The Gatsi Educational Competition, instituted by Mr. John Gatsi, a Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, was to stimulate stakeholders towards improving the standard of education in the area and encourage students to raise their performance.

Six students including Gloria Ahiadzro of the Bagome Basic School at Dzodze, who emerged the overall best student, received certificates and books.

Mr. Avedzi lauded Mr Gatsi for his initiative and pledged GHC2, 000 annually to support the competition.

He called for discipline in the schools to ensure standards and good examination results.

Mr. Jasper Doe, a State Attorney, took the students through acts that could bring the youth in conflict with the law and said last year, 70 percent of prison inmates were young people.

GNA

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Mpraeso, Seth Kwame Acheampong has urged the Ghana Highway Authority to ensure that best maintenance practices are undertaken to ensure a long life span of the George Walker Bush highway.

The highway forms part of several other projects under the Millennium Challenge Account which gave Ghana over $500 Million for the execution of these massive projects.

The road which stretches from the Tetteh-Quarshie circle to Mallam Junction in the Weija Municipality was commissioned today by President J.E.A Mills.

Contributing to the discussion on e.tv breakfast TV show today Hon Seth Acheampong bemoaned the bad maintenance culture of Ghanaians, saying that the situation sometimes causes certain state projects and other infrastructure to deteriorate beyond repairs.

He said authorities must ensure that practices that destroy roads like broken truck, sitting lubricants unto the bituminous facet of the road must be avoided.

He added that an efficient towing system must be available readily to ensure that broken down vehicles on the new motorways are immediately taken off the road to save it from destruction while also preventing the occurrence of accidents.

Hon. Acheampong also noted that trucks with loads far exceeding the permitted tonnage must not be allowed to ply the road as this could a large extent destroy the roads.

Kojo Anim/Ghanamps.gov.gh

A GHs 100,000.00 library and community centre project built for the twin community of Bohyen and Kropo in the Kumasi Metropolis has been inaugurated.

It was the brainchild of the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bantama, Madam Cecelia Abena Dapaah, with funding from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).

Inaugurating the project Madam Dapaah said she was confident that it would significantly help pupils and students in the area to improve on their academic performance.

She said the critical importance of education to the progress of society must not be lost on anybody and that was why all needed to pull together to promote access and quality.

The MP said she was determined to go to every length to assist develop education in the constituency by way of the provision of classrooms, supply of furniture, computers and exercise books as well as scholarship to brilliant but needy children.

Mrs. Gladys Amaning, the Metropolitan Director of Education, commended the MP for the project and said it would undoubtedly assist the pupils and students to adopt a reading habit.

A retired educationist, Madam Veronica Amankwaah, donated 500 reading books valued at about £2,000.00 to stock the library.

A special committee under the chairmanship of Mr. C. A. Gyamfi, former New Patriotic Party Constituency Chairman for Bantama, was formed to oversee the proper use of the facility.

GNA

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, has described the Gh¢54 million bail granted Mr. Alfred Woyome as “a bit on the down side” considering the gravity of the case and the public interest it has generated.

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) legislator insisted he is not concerned about the bail, but how to get the conspirators of the judgment debt to book.

Speaking in an interview with Citi News, the MP for Suame indicated that the most important thing is that Mr. Woyome pays the GHs 51 million judgment debt paid to him back to Ghanaians.

He said: “It’s a bit on the down side giving the amount that is involved and if you should calculate interest, on my thinking, it should be a higher figure.

“Notwithstanding, if the court believes that for the time being the amount is sufficient, let’s leave it to due process”.

An Accra High Court granted the embattled National Democratic Congress financier bail in the sum of GHs 54 million with two sureties and is expected to report to the police twice a week.

Two others, the Chief State Attorney of Ghana, Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh and Mr. Paul Asimenu, a Director at the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, who were also remanded into custody, have been granted bail in the sum of Ghs 6, 000 with two sureties and are also expected to report twice a week to the police.

The case has been adjourned to February 20.

By: Citifmonline. com

Only two days into his new portfolio as Minister of Health, the Member of Parliament for Nadwoli West, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has signed Performance Contracts with two key agencies under his new charge.

They are Ghana Health Service and the three Teaching Hospitals in Ghana, according to a statement issued in Accra on Friday by Mr Tony Goodman, Public Relations Officer at the Ministry.

“A new culture of punctuality, diligence and team spirit will henceforth be the guiding principles that govern the work of the Ministry of Health,” said Mr Bagbin, as he signed the contracts at the monthly Health Sector Working Group (Partners) Meeting held on Thursday at the Ministry of Health.

He added that just as he had promised to execute the President’s mandate in his new role as Minister of Health, it was equally important for him to ensure that all Directors and Departmental Heads, from the National down to the District levels signed a Performance Contract, which would be rigorously monitored to ensure that the ordinary Ghanaian enjoyed the full benefits of their tax money.

In this light, the Sector Minister said there was a further need to make the contracts “More specific, smart, sufficiently demanding and actionable.”

Mr Bagbin said he would personally be paying both scheduled and surprise visits to offices and agencies, as part of his resolve to help enshrine a new sense of mission and purpose throughout the health care delivery chain.

And to signal what he called “A results driven style of leadership” the Sector Minister exhorted all sector Directors under the Ministry to live up to their calling as care givers by first of all “Staying healthy in order to reposition yourselves to practically deliver the operational vision of the Ministry – ‘A Healthy Population for National Development’.”

The statement said on their part, the two Directors of Ghana Health Service and Teaching Hospitals, who appended their signatures to their respective Performance Contracts, gave assurances to the Sector Minister and further committed themselves to reducing hospital deaths in priority areas, such as maternal and child deaths.

Whilst congratulating the Management and Staff of the various agencies under the Ministry for their past performances in the health sector, the Sector Minister did not mince words about the generally obstructive inter-agency relationships, which tend to compromise service delivery to the Ghanaian stakeholder.

Mr Bagbin therefore, called for a vigorous rationalisation of the existing institutional reporting mechanisms in order to deliver an important dimension of the President’s Better Ghana Agenda to the people of Ghana.

Using the occasion of the Working Group (Partners) Meeting as an opportunity to also interact with Development Partners in the Health Sector, he stressed the need for the leadership of the sector to regard Development Partners only as complementary to the efforts of the Ministry.

“Your Development Partners are not there to be leaned upon,” the Sector Minister added.

Present at the meeting were representatives of UNICEF, USAID, European Union, WHO, UNFPA, UNAIDS, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health (MOH), World Food Programme (WFP), Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), National Ambulance Service (NAS), Pharmacy Council, Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

The rest are DANIDA, Coalition of NGOs In Health, JICA, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Private Hospitals and Maternity Homes Board, CSRPM, Food and Drugs Board, Tamale Teaching Hospital and the St. Johns Ambulance Services.

GNA

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Adentan Kojo Adu-Asare has called for a ‘seize fire’ on further discussion especially in the media of the controversial Woyome scandal which is currently being prosecuted in court.

According to him, there is the need for some calmness in the country especially among the two leading political parties (NDC, NPP) to allow the judicial process to take its course as it determines the merit of the case.

The self acclaimed NDC financier Alfred Agbesi is currently being prosecuted for defrauding the state in a whopping GHS 51million judgment debt which was awarded him.

Contributing to a panel discussion on Peace FM’s Krokrokoo show on Monday, Hon. Adu –Asare expressed concern over the media trial of the case, saying now is the time for all talks on the matter to seize, saying he has no sympathies for anyone who is implicated in the huge financial scandal that has rocked the country irrespective of which party that person belongs to.

Hon. Adu –Asare who sounded very worried of the over politicization of the ongoing case particularly among the two leading parties said Alfred Woyome will certainly not be the key issue based on which Ghanaians are going to vote in the December elections.

“The electorates are going to take into consideration, the improvement in their living conditions, the many schools, roads and other infrastructure that has been built by this government and that is going to ensure that the NDC retains power after the December elections’’ he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Alfred Woyome was this morning granted bail by an Accra High Court at the request of the prosecution.

He and his lawyers are expected to post a bail bond of GHS54 million and two sureties in order to satisfy the bail conditions and secure his release.

Two others, who are standing trial with Mr Woyome, a Chief State Attorney Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh and Mr. Paul Asimenu, a Director at the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, were also granted bail in the sum of GhC6000 with two sureties each to be justified.

Kwadwo Anim/ghanamps.gov.gh