Month: August 2013

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Defense and Interior says it is unhappy with delays by the Ghana National Fire Service to submit a comprehensive report on fire outbreaks in the country.

Chairman of the Committee, George Arthur is worried that the Fire Service has delayed in submitting a report on fires across the country.

2,201 fires have been recorded across the country in the first quarter of this year alone, with the Greater Accra coming in second to the Bono Ahafo region which recorded the highest fires in the country and the Ashanti region having the third highest.

But according to Mr. George Arthur, the Fire Service has attributed the delay to its inability to establish the causes of the fires.

Speaking to Joy News after the committee met with heads of the various security agencies in Accra, Mr. Arthur said “the report is long overdue” and urged the Fire Service to “do their best to submit a comprehensive report” on fire outbreaks in the country.

He said this will enable them propose and adopt a detailed plan to curb their occurrence.

“The security of the nation is our concern; the report will let the committee know if the Fire Service has performed their functions effectively, whether the outbreak was the cause of negligence of somebody or whether it is an arson or whatever. That is the reason why the Committee wants the report,” he elucidated.

Meanwhile, the committee has approved a bill proposed to turn the National Disaster Management Organization from an organization into a service.

This will empower the Service to among others, demolish unauthorised structures, particularly those on water ways.

In a bid to ensure quality education in her constituency, Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku, Benita Sena Okity Duah has organized an on-going vacation classes for Junior High School students in her constituency.

While some JHS students in other areas have resorted to spending their vacation time wondering about aimlessly, the students of the public schools in the constituency have been made to spend their vacation time acquiring more knowledge and preparing themselves ahead of the impending term.

Speaking to Ghanamps.gov.gh, Hon. Sena Okity Duah stated that the issue of providing quality education to her constituents is very dear to her heart and that was her motivation for organizing the vacation classes which she started last year at time she was not an MP for the area.

She said the classes organized previously impacted positively on the performance of the students who sat for last year’s BECE as they recorded wonderful results and she is encouraged by that to sustain the classes.

Hon. Okity Duah noted that she knows the benefit of vacation classes having had the opportunity of experiencing it at her infancy and so decided to organize the classes and pay the teachers for their services.

Kwadwo Anim/Ghanamps.gov.gh

Two communities within the Bunkpurugu constituency are on the radar of the Member of Parliament for the area, Boar Namlit Solomon to support them acquire major health infrastructure in their domain that will offer primary healthcare services for inhabitants.

This is to curtail the long distances residents from the remote villages and communities endure before accessing a health facility in the urban areas and towns, in cases where there are no health post nearby.

Hon. Namlit Solomon in an interview with Ghanamps.gov.gh has indicated that as part of measures to boost the health system, he would embark on the establishment of Community Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) at both Kinkangu and Gbankoni respectively.

For Kinkangu community, he said plans were afoot to begin the project soon scheduled to be fully implemented by the end of November this year, whiles the other earmarked for Gbankoni will take place in the year 2014.

The CHPS strategy is a community based approach which seeks to provide health services through partnerships with the health programmes, community leaders and social groups.

It was launched against the realisation that more than 70% of all Ghanaians lived over 8 kilometres from the nearest health care provider (Phillips J. 2002), a problem made worse by inadequate road and transport facilities. Thus accessibility to basic health care services was the key factor that influenced the initiation of the CHPS concept in Ghana.

Jonathan Jeffrey Adjei/Ghanamps.gov.gh

Member of Parliament for Assin North in the Central Region, Samuel Ambre has donated two lawn mowers to Gyaase Senior High School and Assin State College both in his constituency.

The machines are expected to lessen the burden on the students who do the weeding of the overgrown compounds of the two institutions by themselves.

Speaking to Ghanamps.gov.gh, Hon. Samuel Ambre stated that his donation to the schools was in response to an appeal the institutions made to him to enable the students keep the compounds cleared off weeds since both schools which are new does not have labourers to weed the compounds.

He noted that the mowers which cost GHC4, 000 has to a large extent come as a great relieve for the students as they would now have enough time to study not worrying about the task of weeding.

Hon. Samuel Ambre stated he remained committed to ensuring the promotion of quality education in his area, adding that he would do everything within his capacity to ensure his vision is achieved.

Meanwhile, he also donated several bags of rice worth hundreds of Ghana Cedis to the Moslem community in his constituency as they held the annual Eid Ul Fitr celebration on Thursday August 8.

Kwadwo Anim/Ghanamps.gov.gh

About 2615 aged persons in some communities within the Manhyia North Constituency have been registered onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

This was made known when Member of Parliament for the area, Hon. Collins Owusu Amankwah was speaking in an interview with GhanaMPs.gov.gh on recent developments in the constituency.

He said the move specifically aimed at getting as many aged person within the constituency onto the NHIS in order to partially help cater for their health needs.

According to the soft spoken legislator, plans are far advance to get some youth in the area registered onto the scheme and called for support from cooperate bodies and individuals to assist the move after earlier stating that Aiding Micro Finance Limited assisted in registering the 2615 aged persons.

Stressing on health issues, the MP further mentioned quality health delivery as one of his major development priorities, adding that efforts were being made to ensure that accessibility to quality health care is made available in every part of the area.

In other related developments, Hon. Owusu Amankwah has also saluted Muslims for successful Ramadan festivities which ended this Wednesday August 7, 2013.

Emmanuel Frimpong Mensah/GhanaMPs.gov.gh

The Member of Parliament for Prestea /Huni Valley, Mr. Francis Adu Blay Koffie, has donated 50 streetlight bulbs with accessories to seven communities in his constituency.

The bulbs, costing 8,000 Ghana cedis, were bought from the MP’s share of the Common Fund.

The beneficiary communities are Huni Valley, Amoanda, Apinto, Damang, Aboso, Bompieso and Beppoh.

Mr Koffie said at the presentation ceremony that he initiated the project in 2011 to assist the police to reduce crime in the area and that 160 street bulbs had already been provided.

Receiving the items on behalf of the communities Mr. Samuel Aidoo Acquah, Area Council Chairman for Huni Valley thanked the Member of Parliament for the donation.

GNA

The Minister of State in charge of Financial and Allied Institutions, Fifi Kwetey has explained that politicians are not responsible for the increase in the wage bill.

He was reacting to the assertion by labour that salaries paid to politicians have also culminated into the unsustainability of the SSPP.

At a forum in Ho to discuss the sustainability of the of the SSPP Kwetey and the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Seth Terkper insisted that the Single Spine Salary Structure is the cause of the huge wage bill that government has been footing annually.

Kwetey explained that 73% of domestic revenue from taxes are used to pay public service workers. But Secretary-General of the TUC Kofi Asamoah says labour is being ‘unnecessarily vilified’ as the cause of huge wage bill.

He has also called for a segregation of the wage bill to know which category of labour gets the bigger chunk of recurrent expenditure on wages. He suggested that politicians may be taking a bigger share because of huge emoluments paid to them.

But speaking on Joy News, Fifi Kwetey said this cannot be true. He explained that assuming there are 500 MPs, ministers and their deputies who are paid GHC10,000 a month, it would amount to GHC5m a month and GHC 60 million a year.

This, he says is insignificant in comparison to an annual wage bill of GHC 7.2bn. He called the annual emoluments paid to politicians as a drop in a mighty ocean.

He reiterated that ministers are not paid GHC 10,000 and MPs and ministers and their deputies are less than 500.

But Kofi Asamoah says until segregation is done, doubts about the component of the huge wage bill will remain unresolved. He believes that inefficiency in the management of the wage bill also influence this huge figure.

Source: Joy news