Month: June 2017

Vice chairman of the Public Account Committee and Member of Parliament for LambussieKarni, Dery Edward Kaale-Ewola says the recent Supreme Court ruling will boost the workings of the Public Account Committee.

The Supreme Court has ordered the Auditor General to immediately begin surcharging persons found to have misappropriated public funds.

“As a committee it has always been our wish that we have the powers to operate, but because we are within a certain confine jurisdiction we do not have the powers to go to some extent that the public expect from us”.

He further noted that, he agrees with the outcry of members of the general public that, the Public Account Committee is not biting enough, adding that they are not mandated to prosecute, rather it is their recommendation that can lead to prosecution, but it is very difficult for people to understand.

He said the best they can do is to end with their report at the plenary level when its debated and the need be, then the RT Honorable Speaker will recommend to the Attorney General to prosecute. “But I must say the move by Occupy Ghana is a laudable idea and as time goes by we hope Ghanaians will begin to have confidence in the workings of the Public Account Committee” he added.

The Vice chairman observed that, the issue of deterrent has always been the key word of their work and they try to use that as a process to deter people from engaging in the misappropriation o fpublic funds. “As we speak in the first meeting of the committee a lot of people have gone behind to re-fund misappropriated funds” he said.

“Just last week, the Auditor General reported to us that people are paying funds into the consolidated fund the miss link which I appreciate about the committee is that, we did not report the recovery of funds we have made to the public,” he lamented.

He therefore stated that the committee will make available updates of all the recoveries they are making to the public through the media, so that they can win back the confidence of the public.

The Chairman of the Youth, Sports and Culture select Committee of Parliament, Alex Kofi Agyekum has welcomed moves by a private firm, to construct artificial or astro turfs in all 275 constituencies across the country describing it as a great initiative that must be supported.

He noted that the technology to be started by Wembley Sports Complex (WSC), a privately owned Ghanaian Company with marked experience in the construction and management of artificial football pitches in Ghana would benefit rural communities especially.

Mr.Agyekum who doubles as the Honorable Member of Parliament (MP) for Mpohor in the Western region said the idea is in sync with government’s agenda to provide every community with a community field and his constituency also stands to benefit from the gesture.

He advised that the idea should be put into practice and also urged the project initiators to involve the beneficiary communities in the planning and execution process to stimulate community ownership for the proper management of the facilities in future after their completion.

He added that the project is largely seen as a revolution in the sports infrastructure of the country which would help curb the burden of over-dependence on grass with its challenges due to drought and other challenges and help identify and nurture sports talents in all parts of the country.

According to him the Youth, Sports and Culture Committee is ready to support the Ministry and all stakeholders for the ultimate benefit of all Ghanaians.

The Honourable Member of Parliament for the Ablekuma North constituency in the Greater Accra region, Nana Akua Owusu-Afriyie has made significant inroads for the construction of the Lafa drainage system to bring relief to residents in the area. As a result of her intervention, the Ministry of Works and Housing is expected to soon begin work on the much awaited Lafa storm drains which has delayed for many years.

The move is in fulfilment of her campaign promise to help curb the annual flooding situation within the constituency by ensuring that drains are constructed and road networks improve to ease traffic in the area. Recently, the Works and Housing Select Committee of Parliament of which the MP is a member paid a working visit to the life threatening lafa drains site which already taken many innocent lives.

The Lafa storm drain stretches over 13 kilometres through NiiBoye Town, Santa Maria, Kwashieman, AwoshieAblekuma, A Lang and Mallam, all suburbs in Accra.

According to the MP several lives have been lost to floods due to lack of storm drains in the area.
MrsOwusu-Afriyie assured of her commitment to ensure the project becomes a reality.

Other promises made by the one-time women’s organiser for the NPP during the campaign trail includes the establishment of a youth and labour centre for the constituency, provision of soft loans and capital for start-up businesses as well as scholarship to brilliant but needy.

Mrs Afriyie said most of the youth in the constituency have found themselves in bad company due to poor upbringing so the career centre would seek to address issues on career parts while providing avenue for them to gain better employment.

She said the labour centre would be a place where artisans would be groomed to offer service to prospective customers when the need be. The projects she said would be realised with the one million dollar per constituency as promised by the government.

By Christian Kpesese/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Pru and ranking member on Employment Social Welfare and State Enterprise, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, is urging Ghanaians to speak against the current politicization of the Youth Employment Agency, where there is mass transfer of workers just to frustrate them to resign their position.

“This Country is sixty years old and if we are unable to learn lessons and cannot see governance as an ongoing process we are creating problem for the future”.

Youth Employment Agency in the past became a political football game, in the wisdom of Parliament it pass Act 887 to regulate and institutionalize YEA as a professional outfit, here we are this decision by “us as a collective is being truncated”, he lamented.

And unfortunately we are not hearing from the Ghanaian people, their anger to this lawlessness, Ghanaians are not speaking because the media has not picked up the issue and as a media this is also your crusade, he said.

“If we do not stop this today, no government stays in power forever, come four years when there is a National Democratic Congress (NDC) government don’t come back to us and say why is this happing. This reckless disregard for the law must end today, in the interest of Ghana, in the interest of the unborn and in the interest of political stability”.

He further noted that the biggest security challenge to the nation is youth unemployment, and if things are handle this way, “we are creating a time bomb” that will affect the stability of the nation. This is not about NPP and NDC it is about the security of the state, he stated.

A ranking member on Youth Sports and Culture Kwabena Mensah Woyome at a press conference called on the President Nana Akufo-Addo to intervene in the current happenings at the Youth Employment Agency, since he has trumpeted to be a champion of human rights and the rights of Ghanaians are being abused.

On the Minority’s next line of action if their calls are not headed to, the ranking member of Youth Sports and Culture hinted that they will be heading to court. He further questioned why the acting Chief Executive Office of YEA Justin Kodua, Frimpong did not act on the report to sanction removal of alleged ghosts “2,999” names before authorizing payment in March and April of this year?

And further noted that, the current staff went through public service commission to secure their positions, hence the mass transfer to frustrate workers into resigning is unacceptable. “YEA is neither an extension of the youth wing of any political party nor the propaganda outfit of a ruling party and government”, he said.

“Staff must feel safe and assured of an uninterrupted carrier progression so as to be able to give off their best, as current development seek to roll back all the gains made through the painful sacrifices and investment of past governments and the good people of Ghana”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Tamale South Haruna Iddrisu is calling for trade relations between Germany and Ghana to yield one billion Euros trade mark.

Mr. Iddrisu made the call when a five member Parliamentary delegation from Germany called on the Speaker of Parliament and visited the Ghanaian chamber Tuesday morning.

He noted that the current trade relations between both countries stand at 3% and called for improvement in the bilateral and trade relations, adding that President Nana Akufo-Addo recently visited Germanydue to the good relations between the two countries.

The Minority leader called on the German delegation to consider supporting Ghana to help the President fulfil his promise of one district one factory, based on the advance industrialization Germany has achieved. “We acknowledge the contribution of GTZ a German organization their contribution towards, Ghana’s decentralization programme”.

The former Trade and industry Minister noted that, with United Kingdom leaving the European Union, there is the need to take a second look at the Economic Partnership Agreement, which will be the redefinition of the relationship of Germany and the rest of Europe, and this should be looked at in the contest of improved trade.

The Speaker, Rt. Honorable Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye on his part bemoaned the past history of Ghana stating that anytime there was a military takeover Parliament suffered. And call for more relationsbetween the Parliament of both countries and not leaving everything only at the governmental level.

The Speaker called for reintroduction of the relation that allowed Ghanaians to be in Germany without visa for six month, saying it was after the sixth month that visa acquisition was needed. He further pushed for the introduction of German language in Ghana to help strengthen the relationships.

He proposed exchange visits by Members of Parliament from both countries to boost the relations as Ghana stands to learn a lot from the experiences of Germany.
Majority leader OseiKyei Mensah-Bonsu on his part noted that in the early 1970’s there were attempts to introduce German, language in the Ghanaian education system, he does not know how that fizzled out, and called for re-introduction of the German language to strengthen the relationship between the two Countries.

He noted that German industries are cherish and recounted how German automobile vehicles help the Ghanaian mass transport process; but the situation became deplorable when it was changed.
“As at the time that we have started looking at getting a new chamber for Ghana, a lot of architecture drawings which has resemblance of the German Parliament, has started coming to my attention”, he noted.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya, Sarah Adwoa Safo, has gone to the aide of her constituents by giving out soft loans to various women groups, mostly, traders. Over one hundred women in the constituency were each given ¢500.00 in phase one of the project.

The interest-free loan is meant to cushion the women in their trade so as to improve on their standard of living.They are supposed to pay back the loan at a rate of ¢10.00 every week.

Second Vice-Chairperson of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and a government appointee, Mary Odonkor, told journalists on the sidelines of the event on Monday that, the soft loan was borne out of the numerous challenges women in the constituency are faced with.

“They (women) have been coming to the honourable Deputy Majority Leader’s Office with all kinds of problems ranging from school fees, rent, hospital bills, start-up capital among others. So we came out with this initiative to assist them with this soft loan. All of them are already working so this money is meant to cushion them a bit and we believe that it will go a long way to improve on their standard of living”, she noted.

The initiative, she noted, was one of the campaign promises Adwoa Safo made to the women during the electioneering campaign. One of the beneficiaries, Margaret Addae, who spoke to journalists after receiving her share of the loan facility expressed delight about intervention.

She was hopeful that the loan will help her to expand her business to enable her to take very good care of her children.

myjoyonline.com

The Minister of Inner City and Zongo Development, Boniface Abubakar Saddique, has said that the Zongo Development Fund (ZoDF) is meant for developmental projects, therefore people resident in Zongos should not expect that it would be used for individual needs.

“I want to emphasise that the ZoDF is not meant for parochial interests such as paying individuals, hospital bills, footing bills for naming and marriage ceremonies and offering tips,” he stated during a stakeholder consultation forum held in Tamale on Monday, June 12, 2017 at the Modern City Hotel.

The Minister disclosed that the ZoDF is part of the seven key priority and flagship projects outlined in the 2017 budget and has been allocated a seed money of GHC219.5 million.

The minister said a public consultation was going to continue across the country in the coming weeks, adding: “We expect that the inputs we collate will help to refine the draft bill before its presentation to cabinet and then parliament for their consideration and approval.”

He assured that his ministry would work with all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to ensure all projects are well targeted at the intended beneficiaries and delivered in a coordinated arrangement.

According to the minister, some of the priority projects in the 2017 Action Plan include access road improvement, alley paving, tertiary drainage construction, solid and liquid waste management, neighbourhood greening, educational and scholarship support and primary healthcare delivery, among others. He noted other focal areas for the first year are the infrastructure for local economic development such as markets and a technology hub.

Mr Boniface, however, encouraged Ghanaians to come on board to support and not be spectators.

“In order to succeed, the ministry will require the support and partnership of all, including traditional authorities, private individuals, corporate entities and the international development agencies and missions,” he added.

The Honnorable Member of Parliament (MP) for the South Dayi constituency, Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwame Dafiamekpor has called on public universities and colleges in the country to put an immediate stop to the sale of admission forms to prospective students.

He described the sale of admission forms mostly at every exorbitant cost as an illegality which has continuously deterred brilliant but needy students from being able to access higher education and has therefore called upon Parliament to intervene as a matter of urgency.

He also argued that most of the public universities are State subvention hence the need for Parliament to ensure that admission forms sales are scrapped.

The South Dayi lawmaker who is also the deputy ranking member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, expressed these concerns in a statement on the floor of Parliament observed that universities extort monies from potential students as a result of the sale of the forms since more forms are sold that the universities can admit.

The unfortunate situation of selling forms at very high cost of 250 Ghc on average he noted has denied most students the opportunity of attending university education.

Mr Dafeamekpor stated that the charges for admission forms by these universities is a breach of Article (25)1a and (38)1 of the 1992 constitution because the development denies potential students the right to enjoy education.

He also called for the full disclosure of qualification and disqualification details of universities ahead of sale of admission forms to better inform prospective students because the sale of admission forms seems to be a deliberate strategy to extort from the unsuspecting public.

By Christian Kpesese/ghanamps.com