Month: May 2020

Minister of Health Kwaku Agyeman Manu briefing Parliament on Tuesday 19th May 2020 disclosed that the country has recorded three hundred and fifteen (315) cases of cerebral spinal meningitis (CSM) with forty-five (45) deaths.

According to him he presented to the House few weeks ago the situation with CSM when the country had recorded two hundred and seventy-three (273) cases in the Upper West Region and forty-three (43) deaths unfortunately.

He said majority of the cases had been caused by Neiserria Meningitidis (NM) Sero X of which there is no vaccine.

“Mr. Speaker in fact approximately sixty percent (60%) of the samples analyzed were NM a strain with no vaccine globally as at now due to its rarity at causing epidemics.

We have unfortunately recorded two more deaths since the last count two weeks ago, bringing the total numbers of deaths to forty-five (45) deaths. No death was recorded in both week 19 and 20”.

Again, Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago Jirapa Municipality recorded eight (8) cases within a defined window, this made the Municipality cross the alert as well as the epidemic line. Such episodic spikes trigger further strengthening of already activated public health activities in order to get hold on the trajectory of the disease.

Consequently, the number of recorded cases at the end of week 20, 17th May 2020 fell to 2 in Jirapa Municipality with Nadowli, Lawra and Nandom recording a case each. In all five (5) active cases are being managed in the Upper West Region with three patients on admission, all in a stable condition.

The Health Minister further told the House that the Regional Health emergency team together with the Municipal and District Health emergency team are still at work meeting weekly coordinating efforts of staff and community officers as well as sensitizing people on the need to report early to the clinic at the slightest sign of unwellness CSM.

Mr. Speaker, it is an endemic condition, our efforts would continue to be working at preventing outbreaks and in the unfortunate situation of an outbreak, coordinate the output of all stakeholders to speedily arrest the situation as has happened by the close of week 20, he stated.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Bawku Central Mahama Ayariga has urged the Speaker of Parliament Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye to direct lawmakers in Ghana’s chamber to wear the facemask when speaking. According to him it is uncomfortable wearing the mask and sometimes when speaking in the chamber lawmakers are seen taking off their facemasks. He made this remarks on Tuesday, 19th of May 2020 when the House resumed for the start of the second meeting of the fourth session of the seventh Parliament of the fourth Republic. Second Deputy Speaker, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin pleaded with the House to allow him take his facemask off to contribute to a debate on the floor. Members on the Majority side said no he had to put the mask on to debate but along the line he had to pull off his facemask. Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Minority in Ghana’s Parliament is calling on Ghanaians to resist attempts by the Electoral Commission to amend the citizenship laws of Ghana through a backdoor by using an inferior instrument to amend an Act of Parliament and by extension the Constitution.

According to the Minority, this would disenfranchise Ghanaians thereby denying them their fundamental rights to vote as provided by the 1992 constitution of Ghana.

In a statement signed by the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu noted that the EC is determined to compile a new voters’ register to be used for the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Ghana contrary to good counsel from civil society groups.

“Their justification for the compilation of a new register is that the existing voters register is bloated and does not make room for facial recognition as a necessary concomitant to the bio data collected of existing voters on the register”.

The statement further noted that for a new register, the EC has to introduce into Parliament a Constitutional Instrument (CI) No 126 (Public Elections Regulations of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations, 2020) intended to amend the sub-regulation (3) of Regulation 1 of the Public Elections (Regulations of Voters) (Regulations (C. I. 91). Sub-regulations (3) of Regulation 1 of C. I.  91 establishes the primary documents required for verification of a person who presents himself for registration as a voter.

“EC is trying to limit primary documents to only the Ghanaian passport and a national identification card issued by the National Identification Authority. A voter identification card, which drivers its legitimacy from the constitution and particularly Article 42 of the constitution of Ghana, is excluded from the list of primary documents”.

The EC has not brought to Parliament a C. I for the purpose of capturing the facial details of prospective voters, as it has a far reaching consequences for the enjoyment of fundamental rights of citizens and especially privacy rights.

Again, the technological determinism can have a disastrously invasive negative effects on the lives of Ghanaian failure of the EC to avert its mind to the needed regulations to guide this exercise is disconcerting.

Mr. Iddrisu also noted that another omission by the EC is the lack of limited consideration or thought given to the consequences of the proposed amendment in C. I. 126 as it has an effect of unsettling the citizenship laws of Ghana.

The Citizenship Act 2000 (Act 591) presumes a person born on or before 6th March 1957 to be a Ghanaian provided either parents or grandparent was born in Ghana, therefore establish whether a person is prima facie a Ghanaian one needs to look at the person’s birth certificate.

“Unfortunately, EC will have none of this and has unwittingly changed the presumption any person who appears at the registration centre without a passport or national identification card issued by the NIA is presumed not to be a Ghanaian unless two people can vouch for that person”.

In effect, a child who was born to parents and has a passport but whose parents have no passport or a national identification card issued by the NIA would have to be vouched for by the children. And the child would impliedly confer Ghanaian citizenship on his parents contrary to the express provisions in the constitution of 19192 and the citizenship Act 2000 Act 591.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Suhuyini Alhassan Sayibu has said a burden has been taken off him with the conduct of the chairman of the Appointment Committee, Joseph Osei-Owusu’s unnecessary protecting and disallowing questions asked nominees of the Supreme Court judges. According to him, Ghanaians who initially were thinking he was a problem would now revise their note because whatever he sought to resist at the time when the seventh Parliament started its work has been manifested. “Sometimes this is done against members of the Committee on the Majority side of the Appointment Committee, I am personally not happy that these things are happening”, Mr. Suhuyini said this in an interview when Ghanamps.com wanted to know if the Minority side on the Committee was okay with the conduct of the chairman of the Committee disallowing a question asked by the North Tongu lawmaker. “I am convinced with the protest that I initially mounted when we started work working at a Committee, I think the chairman of the Committee must understand that it is not the intention of members of the Committee to embarrass nominees unnecessarily”. Mr. Sayibu emphasised that the Minority side is doing its work and as gate-keepers, their probing work that they do is only giving opportunity to nominees to clear themselves of issues that have been hanging over them or years; they are given the opportunity to clear themselves. “We do this without malice, we just want them to clear allegations since they would be working for Ghanaians, when we walked out during the vetting of the Supreme Court nominee, we did that for cool heads to prevail and we came back to continue with the vetting”. Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com