Month: February 2016

Visiting Italian Prime, Matteo Renzi, Tuesday, told Ghana’s Parliament that his country is prepared to partner with the West African country to develop its agricultural and energy sectors.

“As Italian people we are ready for agri-business here but we are also ready for the energy sectors”, he said in his twenty-two minutes address to the country’s legislature.

The former British Colony has in recent times experienced a dip in its agricultural and energy sectors because of low investment.

For instance, budgetary allocation for the agricultural sector has since 2012 received a paltry amount. Unlike in 2009 where the sector received a 3% budgetary allocation of the country’s annual budget, in 2012, the amount reduced to 1.9%.

It further went down to 1.03% in 2013 whereas in 2015, the sector was credited with 1.1% of the country’s budget.

Low investment in the energy sector has also seen the country experienced a four-year erratic power supply, compelling many businesses to fold up with thousands of workers laid off.

The introduction of the Karpower and Ameri badges to generate about 500MW has brought some stabilization in the country’s energy mix.

However, Renzi in his address said, there is hope for the West African country since cooperation between Italy and Ghana will ensure growth in those sectors.

The new partnership in the energy sector, according to Renzi, will bring on board the European Country’s ENI S.p.A, a multinational oil and gas firm, to ensure that Ghana’s energy sector is further strengthened to meet is growing demands.

The ENI, he added, will be involved in gas supply to the Ghanaian market. The country already has a deal with ENI to develop the Sankofa block Offshore Cape Three Points.

“The new project will be for power generation and it will bring benefit to Ghana. This is a good message for friendship and cooperation between Italy and Ghana”.

He added “your wealth will be our wealth and your challenges will be shared across our collective efforts in finding solutions that work among the two countries in the spirit of collaboration”.

Renzi is in the country for a two-day official visit. He is the second Italian Prime Minister to visit Ghana after Giorgio Napolitano during the erstwhile Kufuor administration.

Mr Frank Annoh–Dompreh, Member of Parliament for Nsawam-Adoagyiri has pledged to provide water tanks to three clinics and a motorbike to the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Municipal Health Service Department.

The water tanks would be distributed to Kofisah, Adoagyiri and Djankrom clinics in the Eastern Region.

Mr Annoh-Dompreh made the promise in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Municipal Health Service held a programme at Nsawam to review its 2015 performance.

He said the items would be his personal support to the health department’s educational programmes to sensitise the people in the area on the pneumococcal meningitis outbreak, which had already taken some persons lives in some regions.

Mrs Esther Duah Oyinka, Municipal Director of Health Service, called on the health personnel to vigorously carry the proper hand washing with soap programme to the inhabitants.

She advised the citizenry to report health cases early at nearby clinics for prompt attention before the situation gets worse.

Mrs Oyinka saidvery soon the health department would start its sensitisation on the meningitis in churches and schools and called on assembly members and chiefs to support the programme in their communities.

GNA

Mrs Freda Prempeh, the Member of Parliament for Tano North, has presented GH¢20,000.00 to support the smooth take-off of the newly established Presbyterian Midwifery Training School at Duayaw-Nkwanta in Brong-Ahafo Region.

According to the MP, maternal mortality and child morbidity remained a national health challenge but the problems associated with maternal health could be addressed if competent midwives were produced to handle deliveries.

She commended the Presbyterian Church in the area for its support and contribution to the development of the district.

Mrs Prempeh advised students in the district to take advantage of the training school and learn hard so that they would gain admission without difficulties.

The Reverend Daniel Asomah Gyabaa, the District Minister of the Duayaw-Nkwanta Presbytery, thanked the MP for the gesture.

He explained that work on the school’s administration block, lecture halls, dormitories were progressing steadily and would be completed soon.

Rev Gyabaa said the first enrollment would take-off in September 2016, and appealed to especially Duayaw-Nkwanta residents both at home and abroad to support the school.

GNA

Ghana risks opening the floodgate for foreign nationals to flood its voters register if it goes ahead to implement a new requirement needed for voter registration, Deputy Chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of Asuogyam, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw has warned.

The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has proposed accepting a Ghanaian Passport, a National Identification Card and a Driver’s License for its upcoming limited voter’s registration exercise scheduled for March, 2016.

In the absence of these requirements, an eligible Ghanaian voter would have to be certified by a native of the country whose name is already in the voter’s register.

That aside, two Ghanaians would further have to thumb print a Form One as witnesses to indicate that person is a Ghanaian.

Each voter has the chance of certifying five persons in such a manner.

A Birth Certificate and National Health Insurance Card which were previously part of the requirements have been omitted from the new requirement because they do not identify the person as a Ghanaians.

But Osei-Ameyaw who is also the MP for Asuogyamang in an interview with Fiifi Banson on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.3 FM, Tuesday, said such a measure has the tendency of causing further bloating the voter’s register.

“If that person brings in somebody outside the country to come and register, it is deemed that that person is a Ghanaian citizen because we issued that person with an identification card that he has a right as a citizen to elect our President, our Parliamentarians and local authority. But with this measure, if we are not careful, we are going to open the floodgate for foreigners to flood our already bloated voter’s register.”

“This will allow people to engage in bringing citizens from other countries through the back door”, he said.

Mr. Osei-Ameyaw posited that since the proposal has not been approved by Parliament, it was important to review it to prevent any possible disorder that the suggestion from the EC may bring out and to further save the little resources at the disposal of the country.

A group of nine card bearing members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have sent an SOS message to the elephant family, urging the leaders, to critically review the conduct of the MP for Asante Akim North, Kwadwo Baah Agyemang, and put him to order.

The group calling itself Concerned Members of NPP, wants such an exercise to be carried out from the day Baah Agyemang lost the mandate of the decision makers of the party to stand on the ticket of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition a second time.

Among the petitioners are Seth Opuni, Francis Omenako, Thompson Gyamerah, Akwasi Peprah, Asare Aaron, Michael Opoku Asamoah, Osei Bonsu, Kwame Owusu and Christiana Omenako.

According to them, ever since Baah Agyemang lost the party’s Parliamentary polls, his conduct in public has always sought to undermine the credibility and image of the candidate-elect, Lawyer Andy Appiah Kubi.

They have also accused the Asante Akim North law maker for openly campaigning for the parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mary Awusi, instead of Lawyer Appiah Kubi.

For instance, they said on Friday, January 1, 2016, during one of the events organized by “Agogo Man Kuo” at Agogo to raise funds to complete a police building project for the area, Baah Agyemang publicly declared his support to the NDC parliamentary candidate when he was given the floor to address the people.

“He used phrases like “adze wo fia ye”, “wo krom aboa di wo namoa ebi ka”. He was also seen to be part of the NDC entourage at the function. It is significant to note that the NDC candidate is a native of Agogo community unlike the NPP candidate who is from Juansa, a nearby town”.

“Therefore, we the Concern Members of the NPP in Asante Akim North constituency consider the honourable’s comment to be deliberate, needless, unfortunate and very ethnocentric. Such comments give credence to our perception that honourable Kwadwo Baah wants NPP to lose in the constituency”.

“His actions and inactions and public conduct fall completely outside the vision of NPP in the constituency”, noted the group in a letter dated January 11, 2016 and addressed to the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi-Boasiko, aka Wontumi.
Further to that, they said the legislator does not pursue the course of NPP in the constituency following his several attempts to put the good name of the party into disrepute.

“He is bent on denting the image of our candidate just to make him unattractive to the floating voters for the 2016 general elections. His comments are recipe for chaos. For the avoidance of any clash within the NPP in the constituency, we want your outfit to put him to order before it becomes too late”, they added.

Attemps to reach Hon. Baah Agyeman for his reponse has proved futile.

Ghanamps.gov.gh