Author: Akumaa GhanaMPs

Third year students in two communities in the Keta Municipality have been spared the trouble of the current energy crises having been provided with solar lamps.

A total of 45 solar lamps were distributed to students from the two schools including Agorvinu and Lawoshieme Junior High Schools.

These two communities are among the island communities in the municipality and have difficulties with social amenities that authorities are doing everything possible to address.

Not too long ago, through the hard work of the Member of Parliament for Keta, Mr. Richard Quashigah, the communities were installed with solar panels that gave them light.

A follow up on that project by Mr. Richard Hosier, Senior Energy Specialist at the World Bank- Washington DC to assess the impact of the project on the people again resulted in individual students receiving the solar lamps which he donated.

Speaking to Ghanamps.gov.gh, Mr. Quashigah who took Mr. Hosier round the project sites said the solar lamps were presented to third year students to aid their studies and preparation towards examination.

He said these children have to be motivated by any means possible to take their studies seriously including provision of logistics in order to come out with good results that can propel them further in their academic pursuits.

The MP said he is very determined to see Keta regain its academic pride, as such he will continue to use his influence to get resources to support education in the municipality.

He urged the students to make good use of the lamps by devoting their time and energy on their studies.

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.gov.gh

A twelve seater KVIP toilet facility has been completed for theWeme community in the Keta Municipality.

The project which was initially started by the community was abandoned for years for lack of funds.

But Mr. Richard Quashigah, the Member of Parliament for Keta who commended the people for that bold decision and effort to help themselves and even started the project decided to help the community when they appealed to him to intervene. Now the facility has been completed but yet to be commissioned. Mr. Quashigah inspecting the facility.

Mr. Quashigah said one way to help communities keep their environment clean is to help provide facilities that will aid cleanliness. But because money is not always available, communities that initiate self help projects have to be supported to complete them if they are unable to. This, he noted will to a large extent accelerate development in the various communities.

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.gov.gh

Lack of effective supervision by the Central Bank of Ghana led to the very famous DKM case where hundreds of customers of a microfinance institution have had their savings go waste, Ghana’s president John Mahama has said.

In a State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Thursday, President Mahama said the Bank of Ghana has to be blamed for the rather callous manner in which many households have had their livelihood tampered with.

The supervision he added if it had been provided, would have avoided what is now a sad story that has led to many arrests.

Mahama told a packed Parliament in Ghana’s capital, Accra, that a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to ensure that the investors get their funds back.

The President gave his last State of the Nation address ahead of elections in November.

Thursday’s address was partly retrospective and progressive as he gave account of his stewardship in the last few years of his term in office as well as revisit some of the major challenges he’s confronted, and the gains made in the process.

While the minority members of Parliament heckled him all throughout, he had loud cheers from his government’s representatives.

Dr Kwabena Twum Nuamah, the Member of Parliament for Berekum East, has appealed to senior high school pupils not to be influenced by bad peers.

He said they should be wary ofsenior colleagues who would attempt to lure them into lesbianism, drug abuse,alcoholism and other unhealthy practices that could put their future in peril.

Dr Nuamah gave the advice when Patrons of Berekum, a group made up of prominent citizens from Berekum based in Accra, awarded 22 junior high school graduates in the Berekum Municipality who excelled in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2013.

Each student received some books,certificate and an undisclosed amount of money.

Dr Nuamah noted with concern thatmany alcoholics and drug addicts were lured into such habits when they were insecond cycle schools and had now become addicts.

He advised students to always remember the huge expenses being made by their parents and guardians in their education and justify that by study hard to achieve good results.

Prof Daniel Obeng Ofori, the Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Energy and Natural Resources and a member of the group, said Patrons was formed four years ago with the vision of helping basic school students to pursue higher education.

He said it had provided scholarships to a number of SHS students and gave the assurance that the group was ready to support all brilliant but needy students in the municipality.

Mr Opoku Boakye, the Berekum Municipal Chief Executive, said the Assembly was doing all it could to improve education and appealed to the group to support in the area of educational infrastructure.

He said many basic schools in themunicipality still held classes under dilapidated structures.

GNA

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ahafo Ano South East, Mr Francis Manu-Adabor, is constructing a clinic for his constituents at Abesewa in the Ashanti Region to make health care more accessible.

The people of Abesewa and its adjoining communities have been travelling to Bechem in the Brong Ahafo Region to access health care and when completed, the clinic will relieve the people of that burden.

The MP made this known at a community durbar held for him at Abesewa in the Ahafo Ano South District.

He called on the Abesewahene, Nana Subin Kankam Amaado II; the Abesewa Zongo Chief, Nana Buieyu Suleimana, and the other chiefs in the area.

Mr Manu-Adabor told the chiefs that he would use part of his Health Insurance Fund to complete the clinic and asked the people in the area for support. He said he would drill boreholes, construct public toilets and reshape bad roads in the area.

The Abesewa community, through their Assembly member, Mr Augustine Dabo, asked the MP to help them build a community water reservoir, a six-unit classroom block for the Abesewa DA Basic School, a public urinal and work closely with the Tertiary Students Association in the area to provide scholarships for deserving students.

Daily Graphic

The Member of Parliament for the Agona East Constituency in the Central Region, Mrs Queenstar Maame Pokuah Sawyerr, has embarked on a road safety campaign to prevent vehicles from knocking down pupils in the constituency.

The project, dubbed: “Life First,’’ is aimed at protecting the lives of schoolchildren who cross some major roads in the area before getting to school.

Per the project, a box with a stop sign on it will be placed at both sides of the roads and when the schoolchildren get to the road side, all that they will do is to lift the stop sign and show it to the driver of a vehicle approaching.

The driver, upon seeing the sign, would have to stop for the pupils to cross the road before continuing the journey.

The district in recent past had recorded cases where pupils who were crossing the streets had been knocked down by vehicles, leading to the death of some of them, while others sustained varying degrees of injuries.

The beneficiary towns are Suromanya, Agona Duakwa, Mankrong Junction, Kortokoli Zongo and Swedru International School (SWIS) junction.
Essence of project

Mrs Pokuah Sawyerr, who is also the Deputy Central Regional Minister, told the Daily Graphic that the intervention was to save the lives of pupils who had to cross major highways in the area to get to school.

She stated that the cause of such accidents was absence of speed humps on such roads and the campaign was to ensure that the carnage on roads in the area was reduced or eliminated.

She explained that as the MP for the area, she was committed to the safety of all, particularly schoolchildren, and stressed that the move was to ensure that pupils did not meet their untimely deaths as they were expected to be adults to champion the development of the nation.

She assured communities yet to be hooked to the national grid that soon they would be provided with electricity to propel the development of such areas.

Daily Graphic