Akumaa GhanaMPs, Author at Ghana MPS

COVID-19 vaccines are safe; shun conspiracy theories – ECOWAS Speaker

Posted on October 18, 2021October 21, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

Dr Sidie Tunis, Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) parliament has encouraged community citizens to take the COVID-19 vaccines and shun all forms of conspiracy theories as vaccines are very safe.

Dr. Tunis made the call on Monday in Winneba, Ghana at the opening of the Second Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament to consider and adopt the Parliament’s Draft Budget for the year 2022.

He said that the call for the citizens to get vaccinated is important as cases continue to surge across the sub-region.

“As it stands, the third wave of the pandemic seems to be stabilizing across our states, but cases are still high with the West African Health Organization (WAHO) reporting a total of 649,077 cases across the region as of Oct. 14, 2021.”

“On the vaccine front, more doses are getting into arms daily, and we seize this moment to appreciate our partners under the COVAX initiative and friendly Governments that have donated doses to African countries.”

He, however, noted that the percentage of African population fully vaccinated, which is a little over 2.47%, according to the Africa Center for Disease Control, is appallingly low, compared to those unvaccinated.

“Much as the unavailability of the vaccine is an issue to consider, we also frown at the conspiracy theories that have created fear of the vaccines in our population.”

“I therefore, wish to use this podium, as I have always done, to send a clear message to our citizens that the vaccines are safe and should be taken once they are available,” Tunis said.

The community parliament, he noted has continued to examine the COVID-19 pandemic more closely and is very concerned about the region falling deeper into recession as a result of the pandemic.
This, he added, will ultimately erase the progress we have made over the past two decades.

Hon. Alban Bagbin, Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament urged Members of Parliament to recommend programmes that will alleviate the sufferings of the citizens, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic while considering the budget.

Babgin who was represented by Hon. Joesph Osei-Owsu said that the recommendations will largely influence the budgetary implementation for the proposed programmes and activities of the institution.

“I wish to emphasise that your programmes should alleviate the sufferings of the citizens and reduce their burdens in these trying times, especially those adversely impacted by the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We must continue to address poverty in all its ramifications and create job opportunities for the people,” Mr. Babgin said.

Ghanamps.com

Ghana hosts ECOWAS Seminar on 20 years of democratic elections in West Africa

Posted on October 13, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

The Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is organising a high-level parliamentary seminar on 20 years of democratic elections in West Africa in Ghana’s coastal city of Winneba from October 13 to 15, 2021.

The theme of the event is: “Evaluating Two Decades of Democratic Elections In The ECOWAS Region: Achievements, Challenges And The Way Forward”.

The President of Ghana and current Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to attend this important meeting where he will deliver the opening address.

The objective of the seminar is to assess the electoral systems in the ECOWAS Member States to identify the challenges and proffer solutions to the shortcomings in the organization of elections.

After several decades of democratic system practice based on elections and multiparty politics, the issue of level of consolidation of democracy has remained unanswered, given the political and institutional instability, observed in many countries of the region.

It is within this context that the ECOWAS Parliament, a platform of dialogue, consultation, and promotion of democracy in ECOWAS Member States, is organising this high-level seminar.

Academics, experts in political science and electoral systems, as well as media professionals will animate the various panels, which will be moderated by Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, former President of the ECOWAS Commission.

The seminar will be followed by the 2021 Second Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament, from 18 to 22 October 2021, also in Winneba.

The session will be mainly focused on the consideration and adoption of the draft of the 2022 budget of the Community Parliament.

The ECOWAS Parliament is composed of 115 seats. As for attribution of seats, each Member State is guaranteed a minimum of five seats. The remaining forty seats were shared in proportion to the population of each country.

Based on this distribution, Nigeria has 35 seats, Ghana 8, Cote d’Ivoire 7, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal have 6 seats each. The other countries, namely Benin, Cape Verde, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo all have 5 seats each.

Ghanamps.com

LGBTQ+: Parliament would not turn its back on the citizenry—Osei-Kyei

Posted on October 13, 2021October 13, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

In the wake of the brouhaha that has surrounded lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, (LGBTQ+), Majority Leader of Ghana’s Parliament said the House would not turn its back on the Ghanaian citizenry as Members of Parliament (MPs) represent the people and their interest.

According to him they would do what is needful as the very first portion of chapter 11 of the 1992 constitution article 125 says “Justice emanates from the people and shall be administered in the name of the public by the judiciary which shall be independent and only subject to this constitution”.

And the operative clause being that justice emanate from the people and as Ghanaians, “we have our own set of values, wherever we come from we have our set of values that guide us in life. Again I am a Christian and belong to the Assemblies of God and cannot say my up bringing has not been impacted by my Christian values equally for my colleagues who are Muslims”.

At a press conference addressed by the Majority caucus in parliament on Tuesday, October 12, 2021, the Majority Leader noted that the LGBTQ+ issue should be confronted as a parliament and should not be seen as a Minority or Majority issue, and he has been calling his colleague the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu and was thinking the two could come together but the decision by the Majority side to organise the press conference was taken quite late on Monday.

He further pleaded with those making contributions on the subject matter on television and radio stations to cut off emotions and sentiment they have attached to it.

He said the bill is before parliament and has duly referred to the appropriate committee – Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, and citizens of Ghana reserve the right to participate in its discussion. He thus urged civil society and faith based organisation to submit memoranda to the Committee.

“We hear some people saying parliament should have debate on the matter telecast live, it only means those people making these calls do not understand how parliamentary business is conducted, and there is no bill in Parliament which is considered in camera”.

He further added that all bills in parliament are considered in the open and are not hidden, he is surprised that anyone would make such a suggestion, it only points out that such people do not follow parliamentary business.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Government issues permit for import of 60,000 metric tons of yellow maize

Posted on August 6, 2021August 7, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

Government has issued permit for 60,000 metric tons of yellow maize for the poultry industry.

The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Akoto Afriyie said under the Ghana CARE Obantampa program, poultry farmers would be given interest rates subsidies as support for their businesses.
Additionally, broiler farmers would have the following subsidies:
• 50 percent of cost of day-old-chicks
• 50percent of cost of vaccines
• 50percent of cost of feed for the first week of production.

The minister who was responding to a question filed by Mr. Godfred Seidu Jasaw, Member of Parliament for Wa East on measures being adopted to mitigate the financial shocks occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic on the poultry industry in Ghana, however, made it clear that there wouldn’t be any consideration to extend longer terms of payment for credit facilities.

According to the minister, the CARE programme has 100billion Ghana cedis for the entire economy, hence nothing can be done again since there other sectors of the agricultural economy begging for attention.

He acknowledged that maize is a major component of poultry feed, as such the shortage high cost of maize has resulted in high production cost in recent months.

He noted that the ministry has established that traders from neighbouring countries are the main cause of shortages in the country as they took advantage of the sub-regional free movements of goods particular maize.

“The traders in recent times flooded the country to buy maize to their respective countries due to the effects of COVID pandemic on agriculture generally in the ECOWAS sub-region, Ghana has become the food basket”
“Mr. Speaker, the ECOWAS protocol allows free movements of goods and services, and therefore, the current situation calls for strategies to mitigate the demands for Ghana’s maize by our neighbours.”

The situation, he noted, was compounded by the severe drought experienced at the south during the course of 2020 season which affected production despite the massive efforts made under the planting for food and jobs programme.

And suggested the importation of maize to augment local supply to address the situation in the short to medium term. And it is in view of this that some of the companies, and poultry associations were issued the permits to import yellow maize for their work.

Unfortunately, the imported maize is yet to arrive in the country contrarily to expectations. More so, it has also been observed that maize prizes in the international market were substantially higher than what is on the local market, he added.

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com

Cocoa Sector: No outstanding payments to be made to LBC – Minister

Posted on August 6, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akoto Afriyie has indicated that currently there are no outstanding payments to be made to LBC across the country.
According to him, the delays in the payment to the LBC have been resolved, and payments have duly been honoured and no farmer is owed any money.

He explained that it has never been the case in the 48 years of cocoa purchase by the Cocobod that at the end of the season farmers or LBC are owed. However, there was a delay occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic which affected demands for cocoa beans and chocolate, and the usual sales contracts were adversely affected.

Answering question from Mr. Eric Afful, Member of Parliament for Amenfi West on the plans the Ministry has to reopen the 2021/2022 main crop season to purchase the abundance of cocoa beans which have been harvested by cocoa farmers in Ghana having regard to the exigencies of the season, the minister said the good harvest made by farmers as part of the 20/21 crop season would not be carried to 2021/2022 season, indicating that at the end of the 2020/2021 the country has made a record production of 982,864 metric tons and on a good not of no outstanding payment to be made by the Ghana Cocoa Board to the license buying companies (LBC).

He also disclosed that the new 2021/2022 cocoa season will commence on the first Friday of October 2021.

” The Ghana Cocoa Board is nearing the final stages of the ritual annual syndication process to secure funding for the 2021/2022 crop season” and assured that in due course, his ministry would engage the various stakeholders, mainly representatives of cocoa farmers, LBC, and the cocoa haulage companies to agree on producer price, buyers’ margin and haulage bricks.

He emphasized that that all these processes would be completed by end of September 2021 to usher in a new cocoa calendar year 2021/2022

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com

“We would demand due diligence in reacquisition of Aker Energy shares” —Minority

Posted on August 5, 2021August 9, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

Member of Parliament for Yapei Kusawgu Abdulai John Jinapor has said the Minority on the Finance Committee would demand due diligence in government’s move to reacquire its shares in the Aker Energy.

According to him the Minority, three years ago insisted that the country needs to acquire major shares in the oil block.

And on Tuesday, August 3, 2021 at a Finance Committee meeting, their side indicated that some additional works have to be done for further validation and proof of the figures that have been provided. “We stand committed and we would ensure that the right thing is done”.

The Minority has made it clear to government to go back and do all those works and bring it to them for them to do further scrutiny, and they want to take every case on item-by-item basis, “we are not doing an omnibus thing”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Transport and Agric Ministers to answer questions today

Posted on August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr. Akoto Afriyie and Transport Minister Asiamah would today appear before the House to answer questions before going for cabinet meeting on Thursday, August 5, 2021.

The Minister for Agriculture has eleven (11) questions in his name whiles the transport minister has three (3) questions in his name scheduled for today.

Majority Leader, Osei- Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu on Tuesday, sought permission from the Speaker for the two Ministers to answer their question on Thursday, if the House start at 10:00am, “I could even give an indication to the president to start cabinet meeting at midday, so that we could devote one hour to questions and answers”.

Ministers for Education and Interior are also scheduled to answer questions on Thursday.

Majority Leader indicated to the House on Tuesday that time would be made for them to also take their questions on the floor of the House.

Kwaku Sakyi-Dnaso/Ghanamps.com

More vaccines on the way – John Kumah

Posted on August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

Deputy Minister of Finance, John Kumar is confident government will be able to procure at least 17 million of vaccines for the Ghanaian population starting this month.

He said the inability of government to acquire the vaccines has nothing to do with finance, rather the unavailability of the vaccines for purchase.

“We all know the global politics with vaccines today, government has always been ready to acquire these vaccines, but it is a question of availability, every country as we speak today has been struggling to acquire these vaccines, so it is not a question of government inability to pay for these vaccines, it is more to do with the lack of availability of these vaccines that is the reason why government has not been able to achieve the health immunity as previously arranged”.

Contributing to the mid-year budget statement on Monday August 2, 2021, Mr. John Kumah said as outlined in the mid-year budget he strongly believes that from this month onwards government can fulfill that duty to the citizenry.

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com

Haruna urges government to provide farmers with fertilizers at the right time

Posted on August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

The Minority of Parliament, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu has asked the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori Atta to work together with the Minister of Agriculture to help secure fertilizers to farmers across the country.

Making a statement on the floor of parliament on Tuesday August 3, 2021, in respect of the mid-year budget statement presented to parliament by the finance minister, the minority leader noted that farming is a seasonal business and this is the time the farmers need the fertilizers for their crop production, hence the inability of government to make the fertilizers available at the appropriate time will negatively affect production.

And more importantly, he said not providing the fertilizers at the right time amount to some form of causing financial loss, since the purpose of spending money on the fertilizers could not be realized.

“I will urge with the minister for Finance to work with his partner minister for Agriculture to make funds available to fertilizer suppliers so that these products are made available to poor Ghanaian farmers”

He also criticized government for making too much noise about their flagship programme, ‘Planting for Food and Job, (PFJ) stating that the government has not been able to manage the initiative well because its impact cannot be felt following the high prices of maize, and other farm produce which were supposed to be produced under the PFJ initiative.

He noted that not only are prices of farm produce very outrageous in the country, but it is even worse when the commodities are simply not available for people to buy. And warned that if steps are not taken to address the fertilizer situation now, it would spell dire consequences for food security in the not too long future of the country.

He said since the finance minister in his address indicated that the Ministry has procured and distributed 4600 metric tons of improved seeds, and 120,000 metric tons of fertilizer, they cannot wait until the farming season is over before giving them to the farmers.

Poultry farmers in recent times have had cause to complain about the non-availability of maize in the country and how it was running down their businesses and appealed to government to take steps to make the product readily available and at affordable prices to help them sustain their business.

Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com

Bagbin gives thumbs up to President of Angola for his efforts at tackling corruption

Posted on August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 by Akumaa GhanaMPs

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Bagbin has commended the President of Angola, H.E. Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco for his commitment and dedication to tackling corruption head-on beyond words.

He said his dedication to reducing economic drought, his resilience at national reconstruction, and efforts at streamlining and simplifying administrative systems, practices and procedures on the private sector which all work towards unilateral and corruption goals resonate in his message.

The Speaker who was addressing the Angolan President and his delegation on the floor of parliament when he paid a courtesy call on him on Tuesday, August 3, 2021 as part of his visit to Ghana on the invitation of President Nana Akufo Addo said the actions of H.E. Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco underscores the importance of building stronger institutions for good governance, and it is enough call for all institutions to wake up and discharge their mandate for the benefit of both the current and future generations.

According to Mr. Bagbin, the huge savings of over 5billion US dollars, that H.E. Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco’s administration has made a little over two years ago from retrieving the ill-gotten wealth from corrupt officials is remarkable.

It has really proven that tackling corruption is about vigorously pursuing corrupt officials and sealing economic loopholes in the administration of the nation’s resources, adding that such outcomes represents yet another major source of finance for the running of every economy.

He said the quality of life arising out of value for money in the sectors go a long way to ensuring sustainable development.

He assured that the parliament of Ghana is encouraged by the president’s speech to continue with their watchdog role in all tenets to give constructive criticism to government, and government agencies, and call on them to account to the people of Ghana.

The Speaker also expressed his conviction that the two countries will remain committed to deeper democratic ideals and work towards strengthening and improving governance in their countries.

H.E. Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco on his part commended Ghana for being a beacon of democracy in the sub-region and Africa.

He called for a partnership between the two countries in the areas of tourism, oil and gas to harness the economic potentials in these areas to help both countries reap the full benefits for the improvement of lives of their citizens.

Domini Shirimori/Ghanadistricts.com