Month: May 2018

Most of the head teachers of pre-tertiary institutions that appear before the Public Account Committee on Wednesday at Ho used the opportunity to appeal to purchase school bus for their institutions recounting the bad states of most of their vehicles and others not having one.

About 15 heads of institutions appealed to the committee to ensure government procures vehicles for them.

Nkawkaw Senior High School’s  head teacher Robert Osei Forson open the flood gate when he disclosed to the committee that the students population of about  two thousand (2,000) had no single bus.

According to the head teacher, teaching and none teaching staffs had to depend on a rickety pickup vehicle.

Mr. Robert Osei Forson further told the committee that appeal has been made to past governments but had not yielded any results.

Deputy Minister of state in charge of monitoring and evaluation William Kwasi Sabi who is a member of the committee disclosed to the committee that, he placed a call to the sector Minister Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh on the matter as the issue unfolded.

And the Minister gave assurance that a number of buses would be procured for various Senior High Schools and attention would be given to Nkawkaw SHS.

Headmaster of St. Dominic Senior High/Technical followed with a similar appeal followed by Donkorkrom Agric SHS.

Chairman of the PAC Dr. Avedzi made a general appeal to government on behalf of SHS schools without vehicles to help aid their work.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

In the light of many reported assaults against journalist in the country, President of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) Roland Affail Monney has said the Association is contemplating on coming out with a resolution for all political parties to hold their press conferences at press centre.

This issue was triggered by the latest attack on a journalist with a private radio station Adom Fms  reporter Ohemaa  Sakyiwaa at the New Patriotic Party head office by Hajia Fati.

In an interview with the GJA President on if the Association would boycott covering events organised by the NPP, he said, “it is an option but we have not come to that decision yet as an Association”.

He further added that the incident is a clear case of assault and to add insult to injury, the Hajia Fati described seeing the journalist as an “onion seller”.

“Our laws should be seeing working; this is a very clear case of assault, when this incident happened the woman failed to show remorse, if she is found to be on the wrong side of the law, she should be made to face the law we will never give up until justice is done”.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Second Deputy Speaker, Alban Kingsford S. Bagbin has said Ghana’s Right to Information Bill 2018 when approved by the House and assented to by the President Nana Akufo-Addo and it becomes an Act will be a reference point to a lot of countries.

He noted that Ghana has done a lot of quality work on its RTI bill and so far it is unparallel haven seen other legislation passed by many countries, which have challenges and had to be amended, “Ghana could have gone same way like those other countries”.

“Despite the delay in the passage of the RTI, Ghana should still pat itself at the back because the quality of work done, our Act will become a reference point by many countries” he remarked.

He recounted the role he played in the 6th Parliament when the RTI Bill was before the House and added that the whole process started when the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) initiated the whole process.

I have taken my time to go through the RTI Bill worked on in the last parliament and the current one presented to the House this year, still there are some areas we need to address but we should not be despaired, we need to keep on with the fight, he said.

When UK passed its RTI law, they had to postpone its effectiveness for five years, it is usually referred to as one of the bad cases, their law is not one to be followed and added it took long for the commonwealth to declare the Act in 1993.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Phase one of the Mallam drainage works under the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water project has progressed very well within the 10 days of working.

In an interview with ghanamps.com, Emmanuel Eklu of the Ghana Highways Authority material division noted that work had progressed very well and confident the phase one is on course for completion within the expected 13 days.

He further added that what is left is to back fill the culvert that had been laid to the road level and move to the second phase over the weekend, when the site was visited on Wednesday.

At the drainage site, everybody was observing safety measure by putting on their reflective cloths, gloves and shoes.

Mr. Emmanuel Eklu revealed that World Bank is very strict on safety measures being taken on its funded projects and would stop any project being undertaken if safety is not being religiously obeyed.

He observed that some previous projects were stopped because of failure to observe safety measures, but now we are abiding by “safety measures strictly”, and World Bank will send people round to observe “if we are following safety rules”, he said.

As to whether traders and hackers along the stretch of the drainage had posse any change, Emmanuel Eklu said no and they are aware of the benefit they will have with the completion of project that will end the perennial flooding.

“Phase one has not had any disturbance by way of heavy rains setting in to disturb the project, we have had occasional light rains but that has not been anyway a problem to progress of the project” he said.

The project Manager Mr. Sun a Chains   in an interview indicated that by Saturday they would be moving onto the second phase of the project by cutting into the main road of the Mallam junction to excavate into  the road.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Joint committee on Constitutional Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee and the Communications committee would present the Right to Information (RTI) Bill 2018 back to the committee on Tuesday 15th of May 2018.

After a stakeholders meeting in Parliament on the 8th of May 2018  to take on board views of civil society on the re-introduced Bill.

The Joint committee would meet in Koforidua from Wednesday   the 9th of May, 2018 to look at the Bill clause by clause, taking on board views of civil society and present their report to the plenary for approval.

The joint committee determined that the Right to Information Bill 2018 could  not be taken under a certificate of urgency, saying they wanted to give an opportunity to civil society to make input to the Bill to enrich it to stand the test of time.

Ranking on Constitutional Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Inusah Fuseini said their doors are still open to civil society with additional views they want to submit to the committee.

Some groups that appear before the committee for the stakeholders conference are Ghana Journalist Association, Commonwealth Human Right  Embassy of the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com