OPERATORS in the telecommunications industry have asked the government not to introduce the proposed tax on phone talk time because it has the tendency to derail the national economy in the long term.
The operators dismissed assertions by the government that the imposition of the tax would increase national revenue to help offset the high unemployment rate under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
They contended that the tax would rather inflict enormous distress on service providers, subscribers and the government.
“Increasing taxes on talk time will reduce the amount of communication related to economic activity in all sectors and, therefore, negatively impact on national development,” they said.
The operators — OneTouch, MTN, Tigo, Kasapa and Westel — made the call at a news conference in Accra yesterday following the government’s decision to impose the tax with effect from next year.
The proposed tax of Gp1 per minute talk time on mobile and fixed telephones, which was captured in the 2008 budget presented to Parliament on Thursday, November 15, 2007 by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, has generated intense public debate ever since.
According to the operators, the government did not consult them before announcing the proposed tax, adding that after a post-budget consultation with the government on the issue, they felt it appropriate to use the media platform to inform the public about the effects of the tax.
The Managing Director of Westel and Spokesperson for the operators, Ms Ursula Owusu, said the government might achieve its aim of increasing revenue with the imposition of the tax.
However, she pointed out, in the long term, revenue would dip because many mobile phone users would be discouraged from using the handset, while prospective users would also be deterred from owning mobile phones.
Ms Owusu said in view of the fact that majority of subscribers of all the networks had significant financial limitations, imposing such a tax “will disproportionately impact on the lower cost calls on all the networks”.
She said call prices in Ghana were among the lowest in Africa but the proposed tax on talk time could reverse that trend.
Ms Owusu said there was compelling evidence elsewhere to indicate that tax on talk time was not a profitable revenue option, in view of its negative impact on socio-economic development, and cited Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Tunisia as examples.
She said already there was a VAT/NHIL tax element on talk time, in addition to customs duties, regulatory fees, corporate tax and other tax commitments of operators in the industry, adding that any further tax imposed would impact negatively on the industry.
Ms Owusu said the telecommunications industry was the single largest taxpayer to the government and cautioned that “we should not kill the goose that lays the golden egg”.
She urged the government to reconsider its decision in order to ensure a “win-win-win” situation for operators, subscribers and the government itself, otherwise the result of the tax would lead to a “lose-lose-lose” situation.
Ms Owusu said much as the operators would want to push for the non-enforcement of the tax, they would not want the issue to be politicised.
Earlier, mobile phone dealers in the country had told the Daily Graphic that the frustrations and other corrupt practices at the points of entry into the country were responsible for the inability of the country to rake in the needed funds on mobile telephone handsets.
For well known importers such as Mobile Phone People and City Phones, who had been in the industry for 10 and six years, respectively, exporters could not be blamed for the loss of revenue from the handsets imported.
While lauding the government’s waiver of duties on imported handsets, they said challenges existed at import clearing points that needed its attention.
The General Manager of Mobile Phone People, Mr Percy Anaab Bukari, discounted claims in the 2008 Budget that importers and dealers in handsets evaded tax and sometimes under-invoiced.
He said inefficient processes and systems at the points of clearing imports into the country were the challenges that rather needed government’s attention.
His sentiments were similar to those expressed by the Executive Director of City Phones, Mr Philip Boyefio, who expressed frustration over some of the processes at the airport when clearing mobile telephones.
He said when the value of imported handsets exceeded about $2,000, an agency, BIVAC, had to value the handsets and the process to get that done was tedious, cumbersome and time-wasting.
Mr Boyefio said security and customs officials at the country's entry points most of the time helped themselves generously to imported goods, saying importers could not complain for fear that the clearing of their goods would be deliberately delayed.
He added that with the fast pace of technological development that saw new mobile phones being developed by the second, importers could not afford to let their goods delay at the entry points. They, therefore, kept quiet in the face of such abuse by those who had to collect taxes on behalf of the government.
Both importers said stolen and sub-standard handsets were likely to flood the market, while weak systems and processes at the country’s entry and tax collection points would persist.
Mr Bukari said the nature of the mobile telephone importation sector enabled the importation of handsets from all over the world, including Finland, where Nokia is produced, and Dubai.
Mr Mohammed Adam, who sells phones in a glass case in Accra, said he was not sure that the waiver of tax on imported mobile handsets would have any significant impact on the price of the handsets.
According to him, dealers like himself who sold in glass cases in the city had to pay between GH¢50 and GH¢60 yearly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
He said with such taxes and the dealers’ need for a fair amount of profit, no significant decreases might be experienced by consumers in the prices of the handsets.
Mr Johnson Akey and other mobile phone dealers all agreed that the new policy would not benefit them, since it would enable anyone at all to import mobile phones onto the market. They said in the long run, they would be driven out of business.
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 5, 2007 WRITTEN BY KOFI YEBOAH AND CAROLINE BOATENG
Friday, December 14, 2007
'ROPAL IMPLEMENTATION DEPENDENT ON RESOURCES'
THE Representation of the People’s Amendment Law (ROPAL), which extends the right to vote in national elections to Ghanaian citizens abroad, will be enforced as soon as resources are made available for it.
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, told the Daily Graphic on Tuesday that if all the required resources were made available, they would be used immediately to start enforcement.
“If I finished tomorrow, I would use it the next day,” he said in response to whether the law would be used if all requirements for its implementation were met in six months’ time.
Dr Afari-Gyan said he was not perturbed by reports in the December 11, 2007 issue of the Daily Graphic that the opposition had threatened to “resist with reasonable force any attempts to effect the implementation of the law in 2008”, stressing that he could not stop their right to resist.
He added, however, that ROPAL had been passed and it was now up to the EC to implement it.
“Until Parliament reverses itself in the passage of the law, we are implementors and will proceed towards implementation,” he said.
“But it takes money. As long as money is available, we will prepare,” he added.
Dr Afari-Gyan, however, gave the assurance that the EC would work assiduously to ensure that ROPAL was implemented with the consensus of all constituents in the country.
Already, officials of the EC have visited some countries abroad where the system is being practised and reports are being prepared on that.
According to the chairman, the ideas gathered by the officials from the working tour of the countries practising the law were going to be thoroughly studied and discussed throughout the consultations.
On the 2008 Budget allocation to the EC, Dr Afari-Gyan conceded that the EC had been given less than it asked for its operations but added that Parliament was handling the matter and so he would not comment further.
The December 3, 2007 issue of the Daily Graphic reported that the EC needed an additional ¢70 billion to top up its budgetary allocation from the 2008 Budget.
The report also said the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jirapa, Mr Edward Salia, had asked the commission not to limit the revision of the voters’ register to only electoral areas but extend it to polling stations.
To those concerns, Dr Afari-Gyan said the revision exercise was not a “wholesale registration process” but just an updating of the register.
Moreover, there were important monetary considerations that led to the proposal to review the register at the electoral level.
He said with about 22,000 polling stations across the country, the EC would need a lot of money to hire people for the exercise and stressed that the huge funding and material obligation of the EC became less if the revision was limited to the electoral areas, which are about five thousand.
Dr Afari-Gyan said the timetable for the revision of the voters’ register and other activities of the commission would be announced in due course.
He pointed out that ROPAL imposed on the EC some pre-requisites, including that which required it to engage people outside to collect data and open offices.
Apart from that, he explained that all the consultative processes being engaged in presently before the implementation of the law were in preparation also for a legislative instrument that would be placed before Parliament.
“You cannot embark on such an exercise without the legal backing and laid down rules,” Dr Afari-Gyan pointed out.
DAILY GRAPHIC, THURSDAY DECEMBER 13, 2007, PAGE 14
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, told the Daily Graphic on Tuesday that if all the required resources were made available, they would be used immediately to start enforcement.
“If I finished tomorrow, I would use it the next day,” he said in response to whether the law would be used if all requirements for its implementation were met in six months’ time.
Dr Afari-Gyan said he was not perturbed by reports in the December 11, 2007 issue of the Daily Graphic that the opposition had threatened to “resist with reasonable force any attempts to effect the implementation of the law in 2008”, stressing that he could not stop their right to resist.
He added, however, that ROPAL had been passed and it was now up to the EC to implement it.
“Until Parliament reverses itself in the passage of the law, we are implementors and will proceed towards implementation,” he said.
“But it takes money. As long as money is available, we will prepare,” he added.
Dr Afari-Gyan, however, gave the assurance that the EC would work assiduously to ensure that ROPAL was implemented with the consensus of all constituents in the country.
Already, officials of the EC have visited some countries abroad where the system is being practised and reports are being prepared on that.
According to the chairman, the ideas gathered by the officials from the working tour of the countries practising the law were going to be thoroughly studied and discussed throughout the consultations.
On the 2008 Budget allocation to the EC, Dr Afari-Gyan conceded that the EC had been given less than it asked for its operations but added that Parliament was handling the matter and so he would not comment further.
The December 3, 2007 issue of the Daily Graphic reported that the EC needed an additional ¢70 billion to top up its budgetary allocation from the 2008 Budget.
The report also said the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jirapa, Mr Edward Salia, had asked the commission not to limit the revision of the voters’ register to only electoral areas but extend it to polling stations.
To those concerns, Dr Afari-Gyan said the revision exercise was not a “wholesale registration process” but just an updating of the register.
Moreover, there were important monetary considerations that led to the proposal to review the register at the electoral level.
He said with about 22,000 polling stations across the country, the EC would need a lot of money to hire people for the exercise and stressed that the huge funding and material obligation of the EC became less if the revision was limited to the electoral areas, which are about five thousand.
Dr Afari-Gyan said the timetable for the revision of the voters’ register and other activities of the commission would be announced in due course.
He pointed out that ROPAL imposed on the EC some pre-requisites, including that which required it to engage people outside to collect data and open offices.
Apart from that, he explained that all the consultative processes being engaged in presently before the implementation of the law were in preparation also for a legislative instrument that would be placed before Parliament.
“You cannot embark on such an exercise without the legal backing and laid down rules,” Dr Afari-Gyan pointed out.
DAILY GRAPHIC, THURSDAY DECEMBER 13, 2007, PAGE 14
CHOOSE LEADERS WHO WILL PROMOTE THE RULE OF LAW-ANNA
AS the country approaches an election year, Ghanaians have been cautioned to be wise and choose political leaders who will promote the rule of law and good governance.
The acting Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Anna Bossman, gave the caution during the presentation of the State of Human Rights Report of the country in Accra yesterday.
December 10 marks the United Nations Human Rights Day.
In Ghana, a week-long programme of activities, which included the launch of the Braille version of the CHRAJ Act and a Human Rights Manual for the Ghana Education Service (GES), ended yesterday with the presentation of the report.
On the theme, “Human Rights and Social Justice in Ghana @ 50: Have we come of Age?” the week-long programme was also used to review the country’s human rights performance.
Ms Bossman said Ghanaians had to be particularly wise, especially at a time when “we are daily bombarded by politicians on all sides promising the electorate the moon, the stars and a bit of cheese. It is important for us to weigh what the aspirants say and, more important, wise up to what they don’t say”.
To aspiring candidates, political parties and the electorate, Ms Bossman pointed out that meaningful achievement in development and poverty reduction was only possible if significant numbers of vulnerable persons in society met their basic social and economic needs.
She said the government’s commitment to development and poverty alleviation should not only be “measured merely on the basis of macro-economic indicators, physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, industries, etc but on the basis of the full realisation of the fundamental human rights of all in society”.
She added that such a society would be one in which a significant proportion of the vulnerable population enjoyed their right to food, basic primary health care, shelter and housing and the most basic forms of education.
While commending the country for the gains in the promotion of human rights, the observance of civil liberties and the decline of poverty from 52 per cent in 1992 to 28 per cent in 2006, Ms Bossman said there was still abject poverty, corruption, lack of access to justice, among other things.
“We have been found wanting in human rights and social justice in every sector,” she added.
Giving highlights of that, she said the commission’s monitoring of some agencies had revealed that with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), some poor communities could not afford the premium, while the scheme did not cater for some special needs of the disabled.
She said the scheme did not cover psychiatric patients at the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital. However, the treatment of patients at the Psychiatric Unit of the Volta Regional Hospital was free but where patients reported of other ailments, they had to be treated with drugs under the NHIS.
On education, Ms Bossman said the monitoring of some schools showed the lack of teaching and learning materials, poor lighting and ventilation of classrooms and inaccessible physical infrastructure by the disabled in some schools.
Monitoring at the Gambaga Witch Camp showed that 80 residents had been registered with the NHIS but on expiration of the premium it had not been renewed.
Moreover, there were claims of the payment of exorbitant “entrance fee” and “departure tax” imposed on alleged witches.
She said that called for further investigation and action.
Ms Bossman said no government could be truly democratic or claim to be promoting good governance if it failed to recognise the link between human rights and sustainable development, poverty eradication and corruption.
Reiterating the position of CHRAJ, she said, “The commission maintains that poverty eradication and economic growth are not just about per capita income, GDP rates, inflation, public consumption, the pursuance of macro-economic policies or accelerated private sector-led growth. Poverty reduction from a rights perspective entails working towards the full realisation of the fundamental human rights of all in society.”
Ms Bossman later launched the year-long campaign of the UN on the theme, “Dignity and justice for all of us”.
Mr Abraham Nunoo, who represented the UN Resident Co-ordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, and read the message of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, said the year-long campaign was to promote the ideals of the Declaration of Human Rights.
He said the extraordinary vision and determination of the drafters of the Human Rights Declaration had produced a document that was widely translated and resorted to by most countries as the basis of their constitutions.
DAILY GRAPHIC, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2007
The acting Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Anna Bossman, gave the caution during the presentation of the State of Human Rights Report of the country in Accra yesterday.
December 10 marks the United Nations Human Rights Day.
In Ghana, a week-long programme of activities, which included the launch of the Braille version of the CHRAJ Act and a Human Rights Manual for the Ghana Education Service (GES), ended yesterday with the presentation of the report.
On the theme, “Human Rights and Social Justice in Ghana @ 50: Have we come of Age?” the week-long programme was also used to review the country’s human rights performance.
Ms Bossman said Ghanaians had to be particularly wise, especially at a time when “we are daily bombarded by politicians on all sides promising the electorate the moon, the stars and a bit of cheese. It is important for us to weigh what the aspirants say and, more important, wise up to what they don’t say”.
To aspiring candidates, political parties and the electorate, Ms Bossman pointed out that meaningful achievement in development and poverty reduction was only possible if significant numbers of vulnerable persons in society met their basic social and economic needs.
She said the government’s commitment to development and poverty alleviation should not only be “measured merely on the basis of macro-economic indicators, physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, industries, etc but on the basis of the full realisation of the fundamental human rights of all in society”.
She added that such a society would be one in which a significant proportion of the vulnerable population enjoyed their right to food, basic primary health care, shelter and housing and the most basic forms of education.
While commending the country for the gains in the promotion of human rights, the observance of civil liberties and the decline of poverty from 52 per cent in 1992 to 28 per cent in 2006, Ms Bossman said there was still abject poverty, corruption, lack of access to justice, among other things.
“We have been found wanting in human rights and social justice in every sector,” she added.
Giving highlights of that, she said the commission’s monitoring of some agencies had revealed that with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), some poor communities could not afford the premium, while the scheme did not cater for some special needs of the disabled.
She said the scheme did not cover psychiatric patients at the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital. However, the treatment of patients at the Psychiatric Unit of the Volta Regional Hospital was free but where patients reported of other ailments, they had to be treated with drugs under the NHIS.
On education, Ms Bossman said the monitoring of some schools showed the lack of teaching and learning materials, poor lighting and ventilation of classrooms and inaccessible physical infrastructure by the disabled in some schools.
Monitoring at the Gambaga Witch Camp showed that 80 residents had been registered with the NHIS but on expiration of the premium it had not been renewed.
Moreover, there were claims of the payment of exorbitant “entrance fee” and “departure tax” imposed on alleged witches.
She said that called for further investigation and action.
Ms Bossman said no government could be truly democratic or claim to be promoting good governance if it failed to recognise the link between human rights and sustainable development, poverty eradication and corruption.
Reiterating the position of CHRAJ, she said, “The commission maintains that poverty eradication and economic growth are not just about per capita income, GDP rates, inflation, public consumption, the pursuance of macro-economic policies or accelerated private sector-led growth. Poverty reduction from a rights perspective entails working towards the full realisation of the fundamental human rights of all in society.”
Ms Bossman later launched the year-long campaign of the UN on the theme, “Dignity and justice for all of us”.
Mr Abraham Nunoo, who represented the UN Resident Co-ordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, and read the message of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, said the year-long campaign was to promote the ideals of the Declaration of Human Rights.
He said the extraordinary vision and determination of the drafters of the Human Rights Declaration had produced a document that was widely translated and resorted to by most countries as the basis of their constitutions.
DAILY GRAPHIC, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2007
MARKETS IN ACCRA NEED A FACELIFT
CONGESTION, filth, poor infrastructural development and planning are the characteristics of most markets in Accra and its suburbs.
In many respects the disorderliness of our markets mirrors the haphazard manner in which most infrastructural development and settlements are taking place in the country.
Markets are important places for socialising and commercial activities in Ghana, where all Ghanaians have a stake.
Traders spend all day there, while buyers also spend a great proportion of their time there, bargaining, purchasing, meeting and interacting with others.
The Madina market in the Ga East District and the Agbogboshie markets, in the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA) are typical Ghanaian markets, where disorderliness, filth and general discomfort are exhibited.
Mr Frank Takie, the Director of The Consortium, experts in human settlement development, thinks the country has got it all wrong in the planning, siting and development of its markets.
District assemblies have the capacity at the local level to put in place an enabling environment for the easy acquisition of land for the development of markets.
Moreover, they are enjoined by the Local Government Act, 1993, (Act 462), to invest in markets, he says, and not shops as is the case currently.
Thus, by investing in markets, assemblies must concern themselves with providing convenient spaces with basic infrastructure such as sanitation facilities and modern butcheries.
District assemblies involve themselves in the building of shops, a venture that Mr Takie thinks must be left to private investors.
They disregard their core function of investing in functional markets.
Ideally markets must be designed and planned for, with space, adequate drains, collection points and parking lots and also planned to serve their purpose of facilitating commerce in a comfortable environment, he says.
“The way our markets operate are not right, their locations are wrong, space is inadequate and the engineering and planning of it is haphazard,” he said.
Apart from the physical development of the market, all markets in the country must be so located as to permit linkages and easy access by residents in the various environs, he said.
Supplies from the hinterland must be intercepted in markets built at the outskirts of cities for distribution to satellite markets within cities and at strategic areas for ease of access.
Markets built at the outskirts of the cities must be done with rest facilities for traders and farmers who bring their wares in bulk to the cities and sometimes have to stay for longer periods till they dispose of their goods.
From these markets at the outskirts, middlemen can buy directly from farmers and other traders and take them to sub-urban markets where others can then retail to small neighbourhood markets.
This concept is called the bulk breaking and allows for a decongestion of cities.
Close up, the Madina and Agbogbloshie markets have similar problems of poor infastructural facilities, inadequate space, poor sanitation and security.
All those who patronise these markets are conversant with challenges of parking, sanitation and congestion.
The car park at the Madina Market is now a trading area, metal containers, umbrellas and some wooden structures have been erected by traders to display wares.
Customers to the market have to park at the side of the main road in front of the market.
The chairman of the Madina Urban Council, Mr Yeboah Dadzie, said the lack of a central parking area for commercial drivers and the increasing number in people doing commerce had resulted in that.
However, the district assembly has completed a new market in Madina, behind the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, and hawkers and street vendors with those selling at the car park are to be relocated there.
A commercial car park is also being built to relocate commercial vehicles and decongest the area, Mr Dadzie added.
Of all the markets in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the Accra Markets Limited, that manages the Kaneshie Market stands out as a model.
Established in 1975, the Kaneshie Market is a partnership venture of the AMA, the National Investment Bank (NIB) and the State Insurance Company (SIC).
It is managed by the Accra Markets Limited, with good infrastructure by Ghanaian standards.
The Kaneshie Market, unlike most markets is housed in a three storey building with washrooms on every floor.
It serves Kanaeshie, Adabraka, Mallam, Odorkor and its environs. However, it also has challenges.
According to the Deputy Managing Director of the Accra Markets Limited, Mr Edmund Kofi Duffour Addae, sanitation is the greatest challenge, because with no dump site in the area, all communities surrounding the market see the market as a dump site.
“Sixty to 70 per cent of the refuse we have here comes from outside,” he said.
To overcome the challenge, the administrators have contracted an additional waste collecting agency to help lift rubbish and make the environs of the market better.
Another challenge, according to Mr Addae, is the spill-over effect of the AMA decongestion exercise in the central business district, which has resulted in a number of displaced hawkers settling at the Kaneshie Market.
Mr Addae said they were trying to contain them in the market and not make them spill over onto the streets.
For now, the administrators of the market are embarking on advertising within the market, using speakers to sensitise people to the availability of goods and services within the Kaneshie Market, as the traders, who number about 10,000 complain of low patronage at the market.
The market has also seen a facelift recently with the rehabilitation of an area in front of the market for use as a customers’ car park.
Mr Addae said the second phase of the rehabilitation of the market would be the renovation of the area in front of the market used by commercial vehicles.
He said that would begin by the first quarter of next year.
Accra Markets Limited, in the medium to long term,there are were plans to set up a 12 tower boarding parking area.
Markets, experts say, are important and need careful thought and planning to make them functional.
The idea of satellite functional markets are of paramount importance now more than ever , in the light of population growth, congestion in cities and increasing numbers of hawker0s.
District assemblies must stick to their functions of providing the policy initiatives for functional markets and partner with entrepreneurs for the running of markets.
DAILY GRAPHIC, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2007, PAGE 29
In many respects the disorderliness of our markets mirrors the haphazard manner in which most infrastructural development and settlements are taking place in the country.
Markets are important places for socialising and commercial activities in Ghana, where all Ghanaians have a stake.
Traders spend all day there, while buyers also spend a great proportion of their time there, bargaining, purchasing, meeting and interacting with others.
The Madina market in the Ga East District and the Agbogboshie markets, in the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA) are typical Ghanaian markets, where disorderliness, filth and general discomfort are exhibited.
Mr Frank Takie, the Director of The Consortium, experts in human settlement development, thinks the country has got it all wrong in the planning, siting and development of its markets.
District assemblies have the capacity at the local level to put in place an enabling environment for the easy acquisition of land for the development of markets.
Moreover, they are enjoined by the Local Government Act, 1993, (Act 462), to invest in markets, he says, and not shops as is the case currently.
Thus, by investing in markets, assemblies must concern themselves with providing convenient spaces with basic infrastructure such as sanitation facilities and modern butcheries.
District assemblies involve themselves in the building of shops, a venture that Mr Takie thinks must be left to private investors.
They disregard their core function of investing in functional markets.
Ideally markets must be designed and planned for, with space, adequate drains, collection points and parking lots and also planned to serve their purpose of facilitating commerce in a comfortable environment, he says.
“The way our markets operate are not right, their locations are wrong, space is inadequate and the engineering and planning of it is haphazard,” he said.
Apart from the physical development of the market, all markets in the country must be so located as to permit linkages and easy access by residents in the various environs, he said.
Supplies from the hinterland must be intercepted in markets built at the outskirts of cities for distribution to satellite markets within cities and at strategic areas for ease of access.
Markets built at the outskirts of the cities must be done with rest facilities for traders and farmers who bring their wares in bulk to the cities and sometimes have to stay for longer periods till they dispose of their goods.
From these markets at the outskirts, middlemen can buy directly from farmers and other traders and take them to sub-urban markets where others can then retail to small neighbourhood markets.
This concept is called the bulk breaking and allows for a decongestion of cities.
Close up, the Madina and Agbogbloshie markets have similar problems of poor infastructural facilities, inadequate space, poor sanitation and security.
All those who patronise these markets are conversant with challenges of parking, sanitation and congestion.
The car park at the Madina Market is now a trading area, metal containers, umbrellas and some wooden structures have been erected by traders to display wares.
Customers to the market have to park at the side of the main road in front of the market.
The chairman of the Madina Urban Council, Mr Yeboah Dadzie, said the lack of a central parking area for commercial drivers and the increasing number in people doing commerce had resulted in that.
However, the district assembly has completed a new market in Madina, behind the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, and hawkers and street vendors with those selling at the car park are to be relocated there.
A commercial car park is also being built to relocate commercial vehicles and decongest the area, Mr Dadzie added.
Of all the markets in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the Accra Markets Limited, that manages the Kaneshie Market stands out as a model.
Established in 1975, the Kaneshie Market is a partnership venture of the AMA, the National Investment Bank (NIB) and the State Insurance Company (SIC).
It is managed by the Accra Markets Limited, with good infrastructure by Ghanaian standards.
The Kaneshie Market, unlike most markets is housed in a three storey building with washrooms on every floor.
It serves Kanaeshie, Adabraka, Mallam, Odorkor and its environs. However, it also has challenges.
According to the Deputy Managing Director of the Accra Markets Limited, Mr Edmund Kofi Duffour Addae, sanitation is the greatest challenge, because with no dump site in the area, all communities surrounding the market see the market as a dump site.
“Sixty to 70 per cent of the refuse we have here comes from outside,” he said.
To overcome the challenge, the administrators have contracted an additional waste collecting agency to help lift rubbish and make the environs of the market better.
Another challenge, according to Mr Addae, is the spill-over effect of the AMA decongestion exercise in the central business district, which has resulted in a number of displaced hawkers settling at the Kaneshie Market.
Mr Addae said they were trying to contain them in the market and not make them spill over onto the streets.
For now, the administrators of the market are embarking on advertising within the market, using speakers to sensitise people to the availability of goods and services within the Kaneshie Market, as the traders, who number about 10,000 complain of low patronage at the market.
The market has also seen a facelift recently with the rehabilitation of an area in front of the market for use as a customers’ car park.
Mr Addae said the second phase of the rehabilitation of the market would be the renovation of the area in front of the market used by commercial vehicles.
He said that would begin by the first quarter of next year.
Accra Markets Limited, in the medium to long term,there are were plans to set up a 12 tower boarding parking area.
Markets, experts say, are important and need careful thought and planning to make them functional.
The idea of satellite functional markets are of paramount importance now more than ever , in the light of population growth, congestion in cities and increasing numbers of hawker0s.
District assemblies must stick to their functions of providing the policy initiatives for functional markets and partner with entrepreneurs for the running of markets.
DAILY GRAPHIC, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2007, PAGE 29
SET UP C'SSION ON CRIME AND JUSTICE-ATTAFUAH
Prof. Kenneth Attafuah, a private legal practitioner and the Executive Director of the Justice and Human Rights Institute in Accra, has said the establishment of a Presidential Commission on Crime and Justice in the country is long overdue.
He said the establishment of the commission would help tackle the incidence of crime and mob action.
Speaking at the third annual Human Rights lectures in Accra, he listed some of the functions of the commission as investigations and reports on the trend, causes and ramifications of violent crime in the country.
The lectures were organised by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) on the theme: “50 Years of the Rule of Law in Ghana: Assessing Human Rights Protection”.
In his presentation on “Instant Justice, the Criminal Justice System and Human Rights in Ghana” Prof. Attafuah pointed out that the incidence of instant justice showed a general lack of public confidence in the country’s capacity to be “decent in punishing wrongdoing decisively” and in accordance with the rule of law.”
He said instant justice depicted the Ghanaian society to the rest of the world as “both primitive and barbaric” while announcing that our criminal justice system, that included the police, the courts and the prison service, were “fragile, incompetent and putrid”.
Analysing what instant justice is, he said the term was a misnomer as what happened when it occurred was the “imposition of instant injustice”.
Prof. Attafuah stressed that the phenomenon of mob justice, and sometimes police complicity in such acts, as well as the tagging of suspects as criminals, was contrary to the Ghanaian social ordering and criminal justice system that had as its basis in the presumption of innocence unless a suspect was proved guilty.
He warned that instant justice impinged on national security and engendered lives of the citizenry as its administration was not founded on facts proven through the regular judicial process.
“Virtually anyone can easily be ‘mistaken’ for a criminal and summarily punished,” he pointed out.
A lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, Dr Raymond Atuguba, in his presentation on “Stamping out Rights: The impact of Police Brutality on Democracy and Good Governance”, emphasised the fact that police brutality covered a wide range of acts that could be relative.
He said the term “police brutality” focused on the police as perpetrators, leaving out the victims who suffered forceful and brutish acts that were sometimes fatal.
Dr Atuguba said police brutality was a reality and could not only be physical but verbal.
He said brute force sometimes meted out on the public or suspects could sometimes take the form of acts or inaction that impinged negatively on people.
Citing instances, he recounted how a five-month-old baby became ill after being forced to spend the night in a Kumasi jail with her parents and an aunt.
Dr Atuguba said the inculcation of human rights or human dignity in all Ghanaians was the first step in ending the use of brute force by the police on people and suspects.
He decried instances of gross human rights abuses in countries such as Rwanda and Burundi, saying that such abuses had been possible because human dignity, that distinguishes humans from beast, was stripped of individuals and groups by perpetrators before they committed heinous abuses.
From various perspectives, Dr Atuguba explained the causes and nature of police brutality, attributing it among other things to the outdated standing orders of the Police Service, and the penchant of the media, human rights activists and civil society organisations to blow an instance of the phenomenon out of proportion and keep quiet over the several others that happened and did not get public attention.
On what could be done, he proposed the constant scrutiny of the police by all, as the police were vested with the “state’s monopoly of power”.
He said that was necessary because all humans erred and the police were human but vested with the state’s power.
Intense and perpetual scrutiny, according to Dr Atuguba, would ensure they wielded the power vested in them responsibly.
The Regional Co-ordinator of the CHRI, Nana Oye Lithur, who spoke on accessibility of justice in Ghana, listed the lack of the knowledge of rights, costs, the physical accessibility to courts, and language barriers as some of the factors that limited access to the country’s justice system.
For instance, she said most Ghanaians did not thoroughly know their rights, while the right of appeal was only limited to two appeal courts that were situated in Accra.
She said people who wanted appeal then had to travel, sometimes long distances, to access this right, adding that a dearth of magistrates and lawyers in regional and district areas affected the right of access to justice in the country.
She asked for the decentralisation of the alternate dispute resolution programme, an improvement of court infrastructure and the introduction of compulsory community legal service by the GBA and the General Legal Council.
The Commissioner of CHRAJ, Ms Anna Bossman, whose speech was read on her behalf by Mr Samuel Bosompem, expressed appreciation that the country was making progress in building democracy while the public will for constitutional systems was strong.
She, however, stressed the need for more action considering the country’s chequered political progress.
She said although for the past 50 years there had been a sustained effort on the educational front, a lot more Ghanaians were wallowing in illiteracy.
Ms Bossman said education, however, was a major tool for accessing rights and consolidating democratic systems.
The Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of CHRI, Mr Sam Okudzeto, said no right could be handed to any Ghanaian on a silver platter.
“Each of us has to struggle for it,” he said.
Mr Okudzeto explained that although rights were guarded under the constitution, for it to be experienced and enjoyed needed work on the part of all.
The Vice-President of the GBA, Mr Benson Nutsupki, who chaired the function, said the GBA encourage lawyers to do at least three free services in a year as part of their social contribution to the consolidation of the rule of law in the country.
He said an area of concern for the GBA was also the state of the country’s cells and prisons and asked for advocacy and attention on that.
A student of the University of Ghana, Richard Salu, recounted how he had been arrested, brutalised and kept in cells at the Achimota Police Station for contradicting a police man in a trotro who told the passengers not to complain about increases in fares and fuel prices.
Master Salu said he was of the view that it was the right of the passengers to speak out and had told them that, hence his arrest and the subsequent assault on him by the policemen at the Achimota Police Station.
DAILY GRAPHIC, SATURDAY DECEMBER 8, 2007, PAGE 16
He said the establishment of the commission would help tackle the incidence of crime and mob action.
Speaking at the third annual Human Rights lectures in Accra, he listed some of the functions of the commission as investigations and reports on the trend, causes and ramifications of violent crime in the country.
The lectures were organised by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) on the theme: “50 Years of the Rule of Law in Ghana: Assessing Human Rights Protection”.
In his presentation on “Instant Justice, the Criminal Justice System and Human Rights in Ghana” Prof. Attafuah pointed out that the incidence of instant justice showed a general lack of public confidence in the country’s capacity to be “decent in punishing wrongdoing decisively” and in accordance with the rule of law.”
He said instant justice depicted the Ghanaian society to the rest of the world as “both primitive and barbaric” while announcing that our criminal justice system, that included the police, the courts and the prison service, were “fragile, incompetent and putrid”.
Analysing what instant justice is, he said the term was a misnomer as what happened when it occurred was the “imposition of instant injustice”.
Prof. Attafuah stressed that the phenomenon of mob justice, and sometimes police complicity in such acts, as well as the tagging of suspects as criminals, was contrary to the Ghanaian social ordering and criminal justice system that had as its basis in the presumption of innocence unless a suspect was proved guilty.
He warned that instant justice impinged on national security and engendered lives of the citizenry as its administration was not founded on facts proven through the regular judicial process.
“Virtually anyone can easily be ‘mistaken’ for a criminal and summarily punished,” he pointed out.
A lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, Dr Raymond Atuguba, in his presentation on “Stamping out Rights: The impact of Police Brutality on Democracy and Good Governance”, emphasised the fact that police brutality covered a wide range of acts that could be relative.
He said the term “police brutality” focused on the police as perpetrators, leaving out the victims who suffered forceful and brutish acts that were sometimes fatal.
Dr Atuguba said police brutality was a reality and could not only be physical but verbal.
He said brute force sometimes meted out on the public or suspects could sometimes take the form of acts or inaction that impinged negatively on people.
Citing instances, he recounted how a five-month-old baby became ill after being forced to spend the night in a Kumasi jail with her parents and an aunt.
Dr Atuguba said the inculcation of human rights or human dignity in all Ghanaians was the first step in ending the use of brute force by the police on people and suspects.
He decried instances of gross human rights abuses in countries such as Rwanda and Burundi, saying that such abuses had been possible because human dignity, that distinguishes humans from beast, was stripped of individuals and groups by perpetrators before they committed heinous abuses.
From various perspectives, Dr Atuguba explained the causes and nature of police brutality, attributing it among other things to the outdated standing orders of the Police Service, and the penchant of the media, human rights activists and civil society organisations to blow an instance of the phenomenon out of proportion and keep quiet over the several others that happened and did not get public attention.
On what could be done, he proposed the constant scrutiny of the police by all, as the police were vested with the “state’s monopoly of power”.
He said that was necessary because all humans erred and the police were human but vested with the state’s power.
Intense and perpetual scrutiny, according to Dr Atuguba, would ensure they wielded the power vested in them responsibly.
The Regional Co-ordinator of the CHRI, Nana Oye Lithur, who spoke on accessibility of justice in Ghana, listed the lack of the knowledge of rights, costs, the physical accessibility to courts, and language barriers as some of the factors that limited access to the country’s justice system.
For instance, she said most Ghanaians did not thoroughly know their rights, while the right of appeal was only limited to two appeal courts that were situated in Accra.
She said people who wanted appeal then had to travel, sometimes long distances, to access this right, adding that a dearth of magistrates and lawyers in regional and district areas affected the right of access to justice in the country.
She asked for the decentralisation of the alternate dispute resolution programme, an improvement of court infrastructure and the introduction of compulsory community legal service by the GBA and the General Legal Council.
The Commissioner of CHRAJ, Ms Anna Bossman, whose speech was read on her behalf by Mr Samuel Bosompem, expressed appreciation that the country was making progress in building democracy while the public will for constitutional systems was strong.
She, however, stressed the need for more action considering the country’s chequered political progress.
She said although for the past 50 years there had been a sustained effort on the educational front, a lot more Ghanaians were wallowing in illiteracy.
Ms Bossman said education, however, was a major tool for accessing rights and consolidating democratic systems.
The Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of CHRI, Mr Sam Okudzeto, said no right could be handed to any Ghanaian on a silver platter.
“Each of us has to struggle for it,” he said.
Mr Okudzeto explained that although rights were guarded under the constitution, for it to be experienced and enjoyed needed work on the part of all.
The Vice-President of the GBA, Mr Benson Nutsupki, who chaired the function, said the GBA encourage lawyers to do at least three free services in a year as part of their social contribution to the consolidation of the rule of law in the country.
He said an area of concern for the GBA was also the state of the country’s cells and prisons and asked for advocacy and attention on that.
A student of the University of Ghana, Richard Salu, recounted how he had been arrested, brutalised and kept in cells at the Achimota Police Station for contradicting a police man in a trotro who told the passengers not to complain about increases in fares and fuel prices.
Master Salu said he was of the view that it was the right of the passengers to speak out and had told them that, hence his arrest and the subsequent assault on him by the policemen at the Achimota Police Station.
DAILY GRAPHIC, SATURDAY DECEMBER 8, 2007, PAGE 16
BRIALLE VERSION OF CHRAJ ACT LAUNCHED
Sixty-two years after its establishment, the Akropong School for the Blind had its first Braille Legislation that spells out their basic human rights, last Tuesday.
The Braille version of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Act 456, was launched and a thousand copies donated to the school at a ceremony that was also used to launch the Human Rights Week.
The launch of the Braille version, according to the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mr Richard Quayson, was to “make it easier for the visually impaired to read and understand the provisions of the Act and to help equalise accessibility to human rights protection for a better tomorrow today”.
He said the launch of the human rights week and the Braille version of the CHRAJ Act had added some significance to the country’s celebration of 50 years of independence and championing African excellence.
Apart from that, the day coincided with the International Day of the Disabled.
Mr Quayson said the theme for the human rights week, “Human Rights and Social Justice in Ghana at 50: Have we come of Age?” was to take stock and ask if 50 years on, the country had gained maturity in human rights practice.
He pointed out that human rights had been affirmed by the human race as the most potent instrument for developing nations, ensuring the dignity and worth of the human person and promoting social progress, among other things.
Quoting the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, he said no development could be possible without security, no security could be enjoyed without development and neither could be enjoyed without the respect of human rights.
Mr Quayson expressed his appreciation to DANIDA for supporting CHRAJ in its work. A representative of DANIDA, Mr Lauge Bechshoeft, was present to join in the activities.
The Headmaster of the school, Mr John Stanley Annor, said attaining “quality of life” enshrined under Article 29 of the 1992 Constitution for persons living with disabilities required empowerment.
“But before they can be empowered they need the right to information. To get the right to information, one has to be literate enough. But to be literate, the visually impaired need to have Braille literacy,” he pointed out.
He, therefore, made an appeal that a Braille version of the new syllabi under the educational reform, textbooks and the 1992 Constitution be produced.
Mr Annor said the school also needed a Braille embosser, for copying Braille material for students, a photocopier with large print for students with low vision, Braille sheets and computers with speech software, among other things.
He also appealed to the Ministry of Health through the Minister of Education to restore the system where school nurses were attached to special schools to cater for the needs of people with disabilities.
He explained that since teaching went on concurrently with medical care, there was the urgent need for school nurses to handle the health conditions of the students.
Mr Annor also asked for decent accommodation to be built for teachers at the school as some lived as far as Accra and commuted to the school each day.
He said that would also enable them to provide a 24-hour special care and service to the visually impaired, who were easily prone to injuries.
The Minister of Education, Science and Sports (MOESS), Prof. Dominic Fobih, whose speech was read on his behalf by the Chief Director of the ministry, Mr Kwamina Acquah, called for concerted efforts from all Ghanaians to ensure the enjoyment of rights by all.
The District Chief Executive, Mr Adu Aboagye, who also represented the regional minister, said the District Assembly was collaborating with the school to produce a Braille version of the Disability Act.
CHRAJ also donated a mower to the school.
DAILY GRAPHIC, THURSDAY DECEMBER 6, 2007, PAGE 47
The Braille version of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Act 456, was launched and a thousand copies donated to the school at a ceremony that was also used to launch the Human Rights Week.
The launch of the Braille version, according to the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mr Richard Quayson, was to “make it easier for the visually impaired to read and understand the provisions of the Act and to help equalise accessibility to human rights protection for a better tomorrow today”.
He said the launch of the human rights week and the Braille version of the CHRAJ Act had added some significance to the country’s celebration of 50 years of independence and championing African excellence.
Apart from that, the day coincided with the International Day of the Disabled.
Mr Quayson said the theme for the human rights week, “Human Rights and Social Justice in Ghana at 50: Have we come of Age?” was to take stock and ask if 50 years on, the country had gained maturity in human rights practice.
He pointed out that human rights had been affirmed by the human race as the most potent instrument for developing nations, ensuring the dignity and worth of the human person and promoting social progress, among other things.
Quoting the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, he said no development could be possible without security, no security could be enjoyed without development and neither could be enjoyed without the respect of human rights.
Mr Quayson expressed his appreciation to DANIDA for supporting CHRAJ in its work. A representative of DANIDA, Mr Lauge Bechshoeft, was present to join in the activities.
The Headmaster of the school, Mr John Stanley Annor, said attaining “quality of life” enshrined under Article 29 of the 1992 Constitution for persons living with disabilities required empowerment.
“But before they can be empowered they need the right to information. To get the right to information, one has to be literate enough. But to be literate, the visually impaired need to have Braille literacy,” he pointed out.
He, therefore, made an appeal that a Braille version of the new syllabi under the educational reform, textbooks and the 1992 Constitution be produced.
Mr Annor said the school also needed a Braille embosser, for copying Braille material for students, a photocopier with large print for students with low vision, Braille sheets and computers with speech software, among other things.
He also appealed to the Ministry of Health through the Minister of Education to restore the system where school nurses were attached to special schools to cater for the needs of people with disabilities.
He explained that since teaching went on concurrently with medical care, there was the urgent need for school nurses to handle the health conditions of the students.
Mr Annor also asked for decent accommodation to be built for teachers at the school as some lived as far as Accra and commuted to the school each day.
He said that would also enable them to provide a 24-hour special care and service to the visually impaired, who were easily prone to injuries.
The Minister of Education, Science and Sports (MOESS), Prof. Dominic Fobih, whose speech was read on his behalf by the Chief Director of the ministry, Mr Kwamina Acquah, called for concerted efforts from all Ghanaians to ensure the enjoyment of rights by all.
The District Chief Executive, Mr Adu Aboagye, who also represented the regional minister, said the District Assembly was collaborating with the school to produce a Braille version of the Disability Act.
CHRAJ also donated a mower to the school.
DAILY GRAPHIC, THURSDAY DECEMBER 6, 2007, PAGE 47
Friday, November 30, 2007
REPORT PAINTS GORY PICTURE FOR COCOA
Story: Caroline Boateng
BY the year 2080, cocoa, which is Ghana’s main export crop, may cease to grow in the country as a result of climatic changes.
It is predicted that by that time, temperatures will witness increases of about 4.5 degrees Celsius, making the country too hot for the crop to grow.
The production of root crops such as cocoyam and cassava may also decrease in yields by 43 and 53 per cent, respectively.
These are some of the predictions by Messrs Jonathan Allotey and William Kojo Agyemang-Bonsu of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in their review of the Human Development Report (HDR), 2007/2008.
The report, launched in Accra last Tuesday, paints a very gloomy global picture for the next few years and beyond if immediate action is not taken.
Focusing on changing climatic conditions and the impact on development, the report has the theme, “Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World,” and predicts that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may not be met, while gains made in development by developing countries may be eroded.
“Progress development is increasingly going to be hindered by climate change. This is a fact that has been established by our local studies on climate change and poverty linkages,” they pointed out.
Presenting the review that sought to relate the HDR 2007/2008 to Ghana’s situation, Mr Allotey said climate change was already affecting the poorest and most vulnerable communities globally.
The floods in the northern parts of Ghana, according to him, were some of the immediate costs of climate change.
Among other things, the reviewers called for a change in focus in the fight against poverty.
They proposed the mainstreaming of climate change initiatives into all development agendas to sustain gains and move ahead.
“This will be a challenge for democratic governance. Political systems will have to agree to pay the early costs to reap the long-term gains. Leadership will require looking beyond electoral cycles,” they said.
In a welcoming address, the United Nations Resident Co-ordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, said climate change posed “profoundly important questions about social justice, equity and human rights across countries and generations”.
He pointed out that although global warming, as it related to climate change, had several aspects, it was fundamentally a development issue that knew no national boundaries.
“Climate change should, therefore, be addressed in the context of our broader international development agenda and co-operation. What is at stake is the future and well being of our planet,” he said.
Mr Toure listed desertification, tidal waves eroding coastal towns, drought and floods as some of the effects of climate change that could not be ignored by countries like Ghana.
A Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Prof George Gyan-Bafuor, who launched the report on behalf of the Minister, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, said the government had shown its commitment by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the main framework for dealing with climate change.
He said implementation posed challenges that required collaboration from all.
The Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Kwabena Adjei-Darko, who chaired the function, asked Ghanaians to resort to the traditional methods of conserving the environment that had served Ghanaians well in the past.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2007, PG 31
BY the year 2080, cocoa, which is Ghana’s main export crop, may cease to grow in the country as a result of climatic changes.
It is predicted that by that time, temperatures will witness increases of about 4.5 degrees Celsius, making the country too hot for the crop to grow.
The production of root crops such as cocoyam and cassava may also decrease in yields by 43 and 53 per cent, respectively.
These are some of the predictions by Messrs Jonathan Allotey and William Kojo Agyemang-Bonsu of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in their review of the Human Development Report (HDR), 2007/2008.
The report, launched in Accra last Tuesday, paints a very gloomy global picture for the next few years and beyond if immediate action is not taken.
Focusing on changing climatic conditions and the impact on development, the report has the theme, “Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World,” and predicts that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may not be met, while gains made in development by developing countries may be eroded.
“Progress development is increasingly going to be hindered by climate change. This is a fact that has been established by our local studies on climate change and poverty linkages,” they pointed out.
Presenting the review that sought to relate the HDR 2007/2008 to Ghana’s situation, Mr Allotey said climate change was already affecting the poorest and most vulnerable communities globally.
The floods in the northern parts of Ghana, according to him, were some of the immediate costs of climate change.
Among other things, the reviewers called for a change in focus in the fight against poverty.
They proposed the mainstreaming of climate change initiatives into all development agendas to sustain gains and move ahead.
“This will be a challenge for democratic governance. Political systems will have to agree to pay the early costs to reap the long-term gains. Leadership will require looking beyond electoral cycles,” they said.
In a welcoming address, the United Nations Resident Co-ordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, said climate change posed “profoundly important questions about social justice, equity and human rights across countries and generations”.
He pointed out that although global warming, as it related to climate change, had several aspects, it was fundamentally a development issue that knew no national boundaries.
“Climate change should, therefore, be addressed in the context of our broader international development agenda and co-operation. What is at stake is the future and well being of our planet,” he said.
Mr Toure listed desertification, tidal waves eroding coastal towns, drought and floods as some of the effects of climate change that could not be ignored by countries like Ghana.
A Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Prof George Gyan-Bafuor, who launched the report on behalf of the Minister, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, said the government had shown its commitment by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the main framework for dealing with climate change.
He said implementation posed challenges that required collaboration from all.
The Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Kwabena Adjei-Darko, who chaired the function, asked Ghanaians to resort to the traditional methods of conserving the environment that had served Ghanaians well in the past.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2007, PG 31
RESOURCE CHIEFTAINCY INSTITUTION
Story: Caroline Boateng
THE Omanhene of the Agogo Traditional Area, Nana Akuoko Sarpong, has thrown a challenge to politicians to resource the chieftaincy institution to operate a constitutional requirement that guarantees chieftaincy as an institution.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Nana Sarpong, who is a lawyer, stressed the fact that the 1992 Constitution was the embodiment of the soul of the nation used to govern the affairs of the nation.
“The guarantee of the chieftaincy institution under the constitution is a major statement of policy, that is not made in a vacuum,” he stressed.
“It means that the country is prepared to finance the institution to the fullest and ensure that it is an equal partner in development,” he added.
Nana Akuoko Sarpong, a Minister of the Interior, Presidential Advisor on Chieftaincy Affairs and Chairman of the National Commission on Culture (NCC) under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, was of the view that politicians, over the years, had helped to weaken the institution through draconian laws such as the State Lands and Stool Lands Act passed in the 1960s.
He explained that those laws that enabled the administrator of Stool Lands to take 10 per cent of revenue accruing from traditional lands with no mechanisms to make him accountable or innovatively make money for the upkeep of the secretariat was unacceptable.
Nana Sarpong said between 40 and 60 per cent of the revenue went to the government while district assemblies took two thirds of what was left, about 30 per cent.
He said chiefs retained only about 10 per cent of that, a situation he described as "oppressive, an institutional handicap and a means to strip chiefs of all means of income."
When asked about allegations of chiefs selling and reselling land, he said there were practices such as the traditional audit and distribution system that served as a regulatory mechanism on chiefs, and act as a check against some of the practices they were being accused of.
On chieftaincy conflicts, Nana Akuoko Sarpong emphasised the fact that the Constitution had provided an effective mechanism for the resolution of conflicts through the respective judicial committees of the traditional councils, regional and national houses of chiefs.
He said if these institutions were properly resourced, cases would not pile up for conflicts to get out of hand as it did in Anlo.
He said the Attorney General was supposed to appoint lawyers as members of the various judicial committees, but poor remuneration of members of the committee, including the lawyers, was derailing efforts at carrying out functionsof the houses of chiefs.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Kwame Osei Prempeh, has said the lack of lawyers on most judicial committees in the various houses of chiefs could not be blamed on the government.
He said the AG’s Department did not appoint but only recommend while the various houses of chiefs were the appointing authorities.
He said lawyers appointed to the various houses of chiefs were taken on the rank of principal state attorneys with the same terms of remuneration as their counterparts in the public service.
He said all lawyers in the public service enjoyed the same service conditions that were complained of but said the government was open to suggestions in order to make things better for all.
DAILY GRAPHIC, Monday, November 26, 2007 PG 40
THE Omanhene of the Agogo Traditional Area, Nana Akuoko Sarpong, has thrown a challenge to politicians to resource the chieftaincy institution to operate a constitutional requirement that guarantees chieftaincy as an institution.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Nana Sarpong, who is a lawyer, stressed the fact that the 1992 Constitution was the embodiment of the soul of the nation used to govern the affairs of the nation.
“The guarantee of the chieftaincy institution under the constitution is a major statement of policy, that is not made in a vacuum,” he stressed.
“It means that the country is prepared to finance the institution to the fullest and ensure that it is an equal partner in development,” he added.
Nana Akuoko Sarpong, a Minister of the Interior, Presidential Advisor on Chieftaincy Affairs and Chairman of the National Commission on Culture (NCC) under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, was of the view that politicians, over the years, had helped to weaken the institution through draconian laws such as the State Lands and Stool Lands Act passed in the 1960s.
He explained that those laws that enabled the administrator of Stool Lands to take 10 per cent of revenue accruing from traditional lands with no mechanisms to make him accountable or innovatively make money for the upkeep of the secretariat was unacceptable.
Nana Sarpong said between 40 and 60 per cent of the revenue went to the government while district assemblies took two thirds of what was left, about 30 per cent.
He said chiefs retained only about 10 per cent of that, a situation he described as "oppressive, an institutional handicap and a means to strip chiefs of all means of income."
When asked about allegations of chiefs selling and reselling land, he said there were practices such as the traditional audit and distribution system that served as a regulatory mechanism on chiefs, and act as a check against some of the practices they were being accused of.
On chieftaincy conflicts, Nana Akuoko Sarpong emphasised the fact that the Constitution had provided an effective mechanism for the resolution of conflicts through the respective judicial committees of the traditional councils, regional and national houses of chiefs.
He said if these institutions were properly resourced, cases would not pile up for conflicts to get out of hand as it did in Anlo.
He said the Attorney General was supposed to appoint lawyers as members of the various judicial committees, but poor remuneration of members of the committee, including the lawyers, was derailing efforts at carrying out functionsof the houses of chiefs.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Kwame Osei Prempeh, has said the lack of lawyers on most judicial committees in the various houses of chiefs could not be blamed on the government.
He said the AG’s Department did not appoint but only recommend while the various houses of chiefs were the appointing authorities.
He said lawyers appointed to the various houses of chiefs were taken on the rank of principal state attorneys with the same terms of remuneration as their counterparts in the public service.
He said all lawyers in the public service enjoyed the same service conditions that were complained of but said the government was open to suggestions in order to make things better for all.
DAILY GRAPHIC, Monday, November 26, 2007 PG 40
Thursday, November 29, 2007
EXCISE DUTY ON PHONE AIRTIME-ITS ONE PESEWA PER MINUTE, SAYS FINANCE MINISTER
Story: Caroline Boateng
Story: Caroline Boateng
ONE Ghana pesewa will be charged for a minute of airtime in line with the 2008 budget imposition of excise duty on airtime use of mobile phones, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, has disclosed.
The new excise duty replaces the import duties and import VAT currently imposed on imported mobile phones.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Baah-Wiredu said the revenue to be generated from the new tax would be used as “a dedicated source of funding” for the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
The announcement of the airtime tax in the 2008 budget has attracted strong opposition from sections of the Ghanaian society, including the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) and mobile service providers.
In a press statement jointly signed by the NUGS President, Kweku Tuoho Bombason, and its Press and Information Secretary, David S. Damoah, and issued in Accra, the union said it recognised the huge number of mobile phone users in the country, most of whom were students and non-income earners, and noted that the imposition of the tax would, therefore, worsen their financial plight.
The Finance Minister, however, held a more positive view of the new tax, saying its introduction would ensure a more prudent tax administration in the mobile phone import market that had been beset with massive tax evasion by importers.
According to Mr Baah-Wiredu, the government was mindful of the unsatisfactory services of mobile service providers and their high charges, saying that the excise tax would not be passed on to the end user.
He said discussions were still ongoing to finalise details of implementing the policy that might have to be backed with legislation.
He pointed out that the NYEP was an innovative programme that had already employed about 108,000 youth, with other more expectant youth waiting to be taken onto the programme.
He said a consistent source of funding was, therefore, needed, hence the excise tax on airtime as a source that would ensure the contribution of all for the benefit of all, that is, the employment of the youth of the country.
Mr Baah-Wiredu gave the assurance that the government was open to ideas and discussions on the matter, as “we will not do anything to the detriment of the user”.
On the agitation by NUGS to block the policy, Mr Baah-Wiredu said that was unfortunate, since the revenue would benefit them by way of employment opportunities after school.
He called for dispassionate dialogue on the matter to help in getting the best policy working for all.
He also denied that mobile service providers had not been consulted on the policy initiative, saying that staff of the Ministries of the Interior and Communications had held several meetings with stakeholders, including service providers, on the matter.
He gave the assurance, however, that discussions were not closed and reiterated that the government was open to dialogue.
For his part, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayirebi-Ofoase, Mr David Oppon-Kusi, said competition in the mobile phone sector would witness increasing better services at competitive prices.
He said competition had recently seen a reduction in the price of mobile phone chips and competitive costs on airtime from the various service providers.
Mr Oppon-Kusi, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the Poverty Reduction Committee in Parliament, said with a base of about seven million users currently, an expansion to about 10 million would further see to the lowering of overheads for the service providers and better deals for users.
DAILY GRAPHIC, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2007, PG1
Story: Caroline Boateng
ONE Ghana pesewa will be charged for a minute of airtime in line with the 2008 budget imposition of excise duty on airtime use of mobile phones, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, has disclosed.
The new excise duty replaces the import duties and import VAT currently imposed on imported mobile phones.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Baah-Wiredu said the revenue to be generated from the new tax would be used as “a dedicated source of funding” for the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
The announcement of the airtime tax in the 2008 budget has attracted strong opposition from sections of the Ghanaian society, including the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) and mobile service providers.
In a press statement jointly signed by the NUGS President, Kweku Tuoho Bombason, and its Press and Information Secretary, David S. Damoah, and issued in Accra, the union said it recognised the huge number of mobile phone users in the country, most of whom were students and non-income earners, and noted that the imposition of the tax would, therefore, worsen their financial plight.
The Finance Minister, however, held a more positive view of the new tax, saying its introduction would ensure a more prudent tax administration in the mobile phone import market that had been beset with massive tax evasion by importers.
According to Mr Baah-Wiredu, the government was mindful of the unsatisfactory services of mobile service providers and their high charges, saying that the excise tax would not be passed on to the end user.
He said discussions were still ongoing to finalise details of implementing the policy that might have to be backed with legislation.
He pointed out that the NYEP was an innovative programme that had already employed about 108,000 youth, with other more expectant youth waiting to be taken onto the programme.
He said a consistent source of funding was, therefore, needed, hence the excise tax on airtime as a source that would ensure the contribution of all for the benefit of all, that is, the employment of the youth of the country.
Mr Baah-Wiredu gave the assurance that the government was open to ideas and discussions on the matter, as “we will not do anything to the detriment of the user”.
On the agitation by NUGS to block the policy, Mr Baah-Wiredu said that was unfortunate, since the revenue would benefit them by way of employment opportunities after school.
He called for dispassionate dialogue on the matter to help in getting the best policy working for all.
He also denied that mobile service providers had not been consulted on the policy initiative, saying that staff of the Ministries of the Interior and Communications had held several meetings with stakeholders, including service providers, on the matter.
He gave the assurance, however, that discussions were not closed and reiterated that the government was open to dialogue.
For his part, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayirebi-Ofoase, Mr David Oppon-Kusi, said competition in the mobile phone sector would witness increasing better services at competitive prices.
He said competition had recently seen a reduction in the price of mobile phone chips and competitive costs on airtime from the various service providers.
Mr Oppon-Kusi, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the Poverty Reduction Committee in Parliament, said with a base of about seven million users currently, an expansion to about 10 million would further see to the lowering of overheads for the service providers and better deals for users.
DAILY GRAPHIC, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2007, PG1
Sunday, November 25, 2007
GOVT DOESN'T FIX UTILITY TARIFFS - PIANIM
Increasing utility tariffs is the sole preserve of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), the Chairman of the commission, Mr Kwame Pianim, has stated.
“It is, therefore, sad that after 10 years of existence and setting tariffs, Ghanaians blame the government for any increases by the PURC,” he added.
He was speaking in Accra yesterday at a workshop organised by the Legal Resources Commission (LRC) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), both non-governmental organisations (NGOs), as part of their good governance watchdog series which started about a year ago.
The workshop was on: “The role of the PURC in ensuring good governance in the public utility industry: Prospects and challenges,” while the good governance series is a forum for knowledge sharing and dialogue on governance issues.
“The PURC, in deciding tariffs, is not accountable to, controlled or managed by the government,” Mr Pianim stressed during his presentation.
He said the decision of the government about two years ago not to annul the PURC’s tariff increases but rather subsidise them showed “democratic maturity where the functions of the different entities are respected and accommodated”.
Prescribing a new dispensation of utility management and growth, Mr Pianim stressed that tariffs alone could not ensure good services for Ghanaian consumers.
He said a three-pronged approach, consisting of concerted efforts from government, consumers and utility service providers, was what would bring in the desired results of efficient utility services in the country.
From the government, Mr Pianim demanded “national discipline, with long-term planning to balance demand and supply, and consistent, long-term investments”.
From consumers, he demanded the payment of adequate tariffs to meet operational and maintenance costs and attract investors into the sector, while the utility service providers were charged to engage in sound management practices to deliver value for money.
Mr Pianim said the PURC, as an independent regulatory body which was not directly managed or controlled by institutions such as the Executive or the Legislature, posed a challenge to traditional concepts of democracy and good governance.
He added, however, that the contribution of such bodies to good governance lay in their ability to collect, analyse and present data objectively in support of their actions for public discussion.
He said it was imperative for all who participated in good governance to do so on the basis of a “creative listening” paradigm, which he said involved dialoguing and arriving at judgements based on facts.
An Economist, Dr Nii Moi Thompson, in an appraisal from a consumer’s perspective, said the inability of utility companies to manage basic structures of service delivery showed that increasing tariffs was not a solution to efficient services.
He said consumers expected three basic things from utility service providers — reliability in service, fairness in delivery and ease in dealings with service providers.
He pointed out, however, that the lack of innovation and managing change by the country’s utility organisations had entrenched a system of inefficient services that sometimes caused frustration for consumers who wanted to pay their bills.
Dr Thompson said with the current state of affairs, no increase in tariffs could guarantee any efficiency in the system, since the utility agencies needed a total overhaul of institutional systems, processes and attitudes.
The Director of Consumer Service of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), whose speech was read on his behalf by Mr M.F. Biney, said the greatest challenge of the ECG was getting consumers to help in delivering efficient service.
He said a customers’ charter was in the offing and call centres were soon going to be established to help respond to complaints from customers.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007, PG 34
“It is, therefore, sad that after 10 years of existence and setting tariffs, Ghanaians blame the government for any increases by the PURC,” he added.
He was speaking in Accra yesterday at a workshop organised by the Legal Resources Commission (LRC) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), both non-governmental organisations (NGOs), as part of their good governance watchdog series which started about a year ago.
The workshop was on: “The role of the PURC in ensuring good governance in the public utility industry: Prospects and challenges,” while the good governance series is a forum for knowledge sharing and dialogue on governance issues.
“The PURC, in deciding tariffs, is not accountable to, controlled or managed by the government,” Mr Pianim stressed during his presentation.
He said the decision of the government about two years ago not to annul the PURC’s tariff increases but rather subsidise them showed “democratic maturity where the functions of the different entities are respected and accommodated”.
Prescribing a new dispensation of utility management and growth, Mr Pianim stressed that tariffs alone could not ensure good services for Ghanaian consumers.
He said a three-pronged approach, consisting of concerted efforts from government, consumers and utility service providers, was what would bring in the desired results of efficient utility services in the country.
From the government, Mr Pianim demanded “national discipline, with long-term planning to balance demand and supply, and consistent, long-term investments”.
From consumers, he demanded the payment of adequate tariffs to meet operational and maintenance costs and attract investors into the sector, while the utility service providers were charged to engage in sound management practices to deliver value for money.
Mr Pianim said the PURC, as an independent regulatory body which was not directly managed or controlled by institutions such as the Executive or the Legislature, posed a challenge to traditional concepts of democracy and good governance.
He added, however, that the contribution of such bodies to good governance lay in their ability to collect, analyse and present data objectively in support of their actions for public discussion.
He said it was imperative for all who participated in good governance to do so on the basis of a “creative listening” paradigm, which he said involved dialoguing and arriving at judgements based on facts.
An Economist, Dr Nii Moi Thompson, in an appraisal from a consumer’s perspective, said the inability of utility companies to manage basic structures of service delivery showed that increasing tariffs was not a solution to efficient services.
He said consumers expected three basic things from utility service providers — reliability in service, fairness in delivery and ease in dealings with service providers.
He pointed out, however, that the lack of innovation and managing change by the country’s utility organisations had entrenched a system of inefficient services that sometimes caused frustration for consumers who wanted to pay their bills.
Dr Thompson said with the current state of affairs, no increase in tariffs could guarantee any efficiency in the system, since the utility agencies needed a total overhaul of institutional systems, processes and attitudes.
The Director of Consumer Service of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), whose speech was read on his behalf by Mr M.F. Biney, said the greatest challenge of the ECG was getting consumers to help in delivering efficient service.
He said a customers’ charter was in the offing and call centres were soon going to be established to help respond to complaints from customers.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007, PG 34
WE NEED L.I. ON EDUCATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY-CLARKE
THE Programme Manager, Occupational and Environmental Health of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Edith Clarke, has called for the passage of a legislative instrument(LI) on occupational health and safety in support of the Labour Act 2003.
She said Section 118 of the law, which mandated the provision of safe and healthy work environment by employers for workers, needed operationalisation through an LI.
The LI, she said, would provide guidance, among others, on the means of protection from the effects of hazardous pollutants.
Delivering a lecture on the “The Effects of Air Pollution on Health” as part of a year long programme by the GHS, she also asked workers to show interest in the issue of occupational health issues and advocate the passage of right policies and regulations for their benefit.
Dr Clarke said air, domestic and industrial pollutants were the most important risks that workers had to take note of.
Examples of these pollutants, she said, were burning, fumes from vehicles, construction works and insecticide sprays.
She advocated the adoption of clean fossil fuels, the regular servicing of vehicles and environmentally friendly waste disposal methods.
She also asked policy makers to review the policy on the importation of over-aged vehicles that emitted pollutants and resulted in Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs).
According to Dr Clarke, occupational health and safety were important for health and development, pointing out that ARIs, irritation of the skin and eyes were some health conditions that impacted negatively on productivity and school attendance of children.
Mrs Esi Nerquaye-Tetteh of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), contributing, said the agency was still working with other stakehoders to develop Vehicular Emission Standards and Regulation policy for the country.
A Deputy Director of Administration at the GHS, Mr Yaw Brobbey-Mpiani, said the lecture was part of a programme of action of the GHS to educate workers and implement, through knowledge sharing, clinical care and preventive health policies of the GHS.
He said it was also to impact public health policy by making information available to others and using feedback to enhance efforts.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007
She said Section 118 of the law, which mandated the provision of safe and healthy work environment by employers for workers, needed operationalisation through an LI.
The LI, she said, would provide guidance, among others, on the means of protection from the effects of hazardous pollutants.
Delivering a lecture on the “The Effects of Air Pollution on Health” as part of a year long programme by the GHS, she also asked workers to show interest in the issue of occupational health issues and advocate the passage of right policies and regulations for their benefit.
Dr Clarke said air, domestic and industrial pollutants were the most important risks that workers had to take note of.
Examples of these pollutants, she said, were burning, fumes from vehicles, construction works and insecticide sprays.
She advocated the adoption of clean fossil fuels, the regular servicing of vehicles and environmentally friendly waste disposal methods.
She also asked policy makers to review the policy on the importation of over-aged vehicles that emitted pollutants and resulted in Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs).
According to Dr Clarke, occupational health and safety were important for health and development, pointing out that ARIs, irritation of the skin and eyes were some health conditions that impacted negatively on productivity and school attendance of children.
Mrs Esi Nerquaye-Tetteh of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), contributing, said the agency was still working with other stakehoders to develop Vehicular Emission Standards and Regulation policy for the country.
A Deputy Director of Administration at the GHS, Mr Yaw Brobbey-Mpiani, said the lecture was part of a programme of action of the GHS to educate workers and implement, through knowledge sharing, clinical care and preventive health policies of the GHS.
He said it was also to impact public health policy by making information available to others and using feedback to enhance efforts.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007
C'TEE RECOMMENDED RME AS SUBJECT-ANAMUAH-MENSAH
THE Chairman of the Educational Reform Review Committee, Prof Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, has confirmed that the committee recommended the teaching of Religious and Moral Education (RME) as a subject.
He added that not only was the recommendation made; the committee went further to propose that RME permeate the teaching of all subjects at the primary and junior high schools.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Prof Anamuah-Mensah said the moral and religious upbringing of children for them to become responsible adults was a basic tenet underlying that proposal.
He said a cursory reading of the Report of the President’s Committee on Review of Educational Reforms in Ghana, submitted in October 2002, was clear on the teaching RME not only as a subject but an integral part of other subjects such as Business and Mathematics.
He said the committee made the proposition based on falling moral standards, with a view on the need for a “more practical orientation” to the teaching of RME.
In apparent reference to the executive summary of the report, Prof Anamuah-Mensah noted that one of the first underlying principles in the report to guide education was the belief among most Ghanaians in a supreme being.
Prof Anamuah-Mensah said although the committee had made that and other proposals, the report was now in the implementation stage and a National Implementation Committee had been set up to implement it.
“The implementation aspect of the report is the issue now and the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service (GES) are the best agencies to ask why RME has been taken out and the reason for that,” he said.
He, however, discounted public assertions that RME might have been taken out as a donor conditionality, since many donors in Europe and the United States had, for some years now, taken from their curriculum similar subjects.
When asked how teachers were going to take up the challenge of teaching RME as elements in other subjects, Prof Anamuah-Mensah said the training and re-training of teachers was also recommended as being basic and integral to the reforms implementation programme.
The deletion of RME from the school curriculum has sparked off controversy, with the Catholic Bishops Conference issuing a strongly-worded pastoral letter calling for the re-introduction of the subject and a free hand to appoint Catholics as heads and assistant heads of Catholic institutions.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007, PG 22
He added that not only was the recommendation made; the committee went further to propose that RME permeate the teaching of all subjects at the primary and junior high schools.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Prof Anamuah-Mensah said the moral and religious upbringing of children for them to become responsible adults was a basic tenet underlying that proposal.
He said a cursory reading of the Report of the President’s Committee on Review of Educational Reforms in Ghana, submitted in October 2002, was clear on the teaching RME not only as a subject but an integral part of other subjects such as Business and Mathematics.
He said the committee made the proposition based on falling moral standards, with a view on the need for a “more practical orientation” to the teaching of RME.
In apparent reference to the executive summary of the report, Prof Anamuah-Mensah noted that one of the first underlying principles in the report to guide education was the belief among most Ghanaians in a supreme being.
Prof Anamuah-Mensah said although the committee had made that and other proposals, the report was now in the implementation stage and a National Implementation Committee had been set up to implement it.
“The implementation aspect of the report is the issue now and the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service (GES) are the best agencies to ask why RME has been taken out and the reason for that,” he said.
He, however, discounted public assertions that RME might have been taken out as a donor conditionality, since many donors in Europe and the United States had, for some years now, taken from their curriculum similar subjects.
When asked how teachers were going to take up the challenge of teaching RME as elements in other subjects, Prof Anamuah-Mensah said the training and re-training of teachers was also recommended as being basic and integral to the reforms implementation programme.
The deletion of RME from the school curriculum has sparked off controversy, with the Catholic Bishops Conference issuing a strongly-worded pastoral letter calling for the re-introduction of the subject and a free hand to appoint Catholics as heads and assistant heads of Catholic institutions.
DAILY GRAPHIC, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2007, PG 22
Monday, November 19, 2007
DUTY ON MOBILE PHONE CALLS PRUDENT -SAYS DIRECTOR OF BUDGETS
THE Director of Budgets at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), Mr Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, has explained that the government’s decision to waive duties and Value Added Tax on imported mobile phones and substitute them with excise duty on calls made by subscribers is for a prudent tax administration.
He said the policy would end the practice of mobile phone smuggling into the country, reduce the cost of handsets for consumers and ensure that every mobile phone was taxed appropriately through the excise duty.
Speaking at a dissemination workshop on the 2008 Budget in Accra over the weekend, Mr Adjei-Mensah noted that consumers would not be worse off as the prices of mobile phones would also go down.
He said with advancement in technology and the right policy initiatives, the country was gradually getting to the stage where mobile phones would be issued by service providers at no cost at all to consumers.
Indications picked from other officials of the ministry at the workshop were that government was in negotiations with mobile phone service providers not to pass on the tax to consumers while importers of the phones would be monitored to ensure that they did not put any costs on the phones they brought in.
Giving an overview of the budget, Mr Adjei-Mensah, among other things, pointed out that the country was the only one in the sub-region that had chalked up a GDP rate of 6.3 per cent against the 5.7 per cent set for the region.
He also pointed out that Ghana was the only country in the region that had halved poverty and was gearing for a middle-income status by the year 2015, a target that was far above the targets set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
A Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), Dr Akoto Osei, welcoming the participants made up of officials of the ministry and the Ministry of Information (MOI), regional and district budget directors and officers, as well as information service officials from all the districts in Accra, said no one could presume to understand the budget just a day after it was read to be able to meaningfully contribute intelligently to discussions on it.
He said for this reason, the workshop was organised for participants to study the document thoroughly to be able to explain government policies to the people.
“Your job is not to say that the budget is good or bad, but to let people understand what is in the document,” he told them.
The Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Frank Agyekum, in his statements, also underscored the importance of understanding the budget to be able to explain it to the people.
He said the 146 mobile cinema vans, new four wheel pickups brought in for all the 10 regional information departments, the newly recruited commentators and the drivers appointed were all to make the work of disseminating information on government policy much easier.
He said the policy would end the practice of mobile phone smuggling into the country, reduce the cost of handsets for consumers and ensure that every mobile phone was taxed appropriately through the excise duty.
Speaking at a dissemination workshop on the 2008 Budget in Accra over the weekend, Mr Adjei-Mensah noted that consumers would not be worse off as the prices of mobile phones would also go down.
He said with advancement in technology and the right policy initiatives, the country was gradually getting to the stage where mobile phones would be issued by service providers at no cost at all to consumers.
Indications picked from other officials of the ministry at the workshop were that government was in negotiations with mobile phone service providers not to pass on the tax to consumers while importers of the phones would be monitored to ensure that they did not put any costs on the phones they brought in.
Giving an overview of the budget, Mr Adjei-Mensah, among other things, pointed out that the country was the only one in the sub-region that had chalked up a GDP rate of 6.3 per cent against the 5.7 per cent set for the region.
He also pointed out that Ghana was the only country in the region that had halved poverty and was gearing for a middle-income status by the year 2015, a target that was far above the targets set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
A Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), Dr Akoto Osei, welcoming the participants made up of officials of the ministry and the Ministry of Information (MOI), regional and district budget directors and officers, as well as information service officials from all the districts in Accra, said no one could presume to understand the budget just a day after it was read to be able to meaningfully contribute intelligently to discussions on it.
He said for this reason, the workshop was organised for participants to study the document thoroughly to be able to explain government policies to the people.
“Your job is not to say that the budget is good or bad, but to let people understand what is in the document,” he told them.
The Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Frank Agyekum, in his statements, also underscored the importance of understanding the budget to be able to explain it to the people.
He said the 146 mobile cinema vans, new four wheel pickups brought in for all the 10 regional information departments, the newly recruited commentators and the drivers appointed were all to make the work of disseminating information on government policy much easier.
GOVERNMENT UPDATES CORRUPTION LAWS
THE government has begun a process to update laws on corruption in the country to conform with regional and international conventions and definitions.
The Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Kwame Osei-Prempeh, who spoke to the Daily Graphic on a wide range of topics, including issues raised at the hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, said the effort was in line with the government’s commitment to fight the vice.
He noted that some regional and international definitions of corruption, such as the United Nation’s Anti-Corruption Convention and the African Union (AU) Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and Related Offences, had not been domesticated to become part of the laws of the country.
Currently, Ghana’s anti-corruption laws are in the 1992 Constitution, the Criminal Code of 1960 (Act 29), among other laws, and they are considered limiting because they do not take into consideration other corrupt practices that may derail the economic and social development of a people.
The minister, however, disagreed with a suggestion that the former Minister of Transportation, Dr Richard Anane, could have been found guilty on the allegation of corruption if his case had been investigated under the dispensation when international laws had been factored into the country’s laws.
The corruption laws of the country were an issue of concern for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) when it investigated the former Minister of Transportation in September last year.
Although the commission did not find the allegation of corruption proven by evidence during its investigations, it stated in its ruling, “The commission recommends the necessary processes to be initiated to upgrade our laws to meet the AU minimum standards as contained in the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and Related Offences.”
Legal practitioners and advocates contacted by the Daily Graphic on the importance of such an exercise said the domestication of the laws would expand the reach of the laws on corruption and strengthen institutions and mechanisms in preventing corruption.
International conventions and laws on corruption take into account all acts that directly or indirectly benefit a person, to the detriment of the larger social good.
Acts of corruption, under international conventions and norms, might not only be criminal in nature but could be administrative to pass of as a corrupt practice, Mr Richard Quayson, a Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ in charge of Anti-Corruption and Public Education, pointed out when contacted.
The World Bank definition of corruption encompasses patronage, nepotism and the theft of state assets, as well as the diversion of state revenues.
The definition also underscores the fact that the benefit gained from corruption does not necessary have to be financial or immediate and lists the promise or the giving of an undue payment or other advantage directly or through intermediaries to influence the committal or omission of acts for the personal benefit of public officials as corrupt practices.
Mr Quayson said the updating of the laws was in the right direction, but pointed out that for CHRAJ, updating laws on corruption, as it recommended in its ruling in the investigations concerning Dr Anane, was not to witch-hunt individuals but to improve the country’s processes, institutions and structures for dealing with corruption.
He said if the country’s laws on corruption were merged with international norms, CHRAJ would undertake a sensitisation programme for public officials to enhance compliance with the rules and regulations.
The Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Kwame Osei-Prempeh, who spoke to the Daily Graphic on a wide range of topics, including issues raised at the hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, said the effort was in line with the government’s commitment to fight the vice.
He noted that some regional and international definitions of corruption, such as the United Nation’s Anti-Corruption Convention and the African Union (AU) Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and Related Offences, had not been domesticated to become part of the laws of the country.
Currently, Ghana’s anti-corruption laws are in the 1992 Constitution, the Criminal Code of 1960 (Act 29), among other laws, and they are considered limiting because they do not take into consideration other corrupt practices that may derail the economic and social development of a people.
The minister, however, disagreed with a suggestion that the former Minister of Transportation, Dr Richard Anane, could have been found guilty on the allegation of corruption if his case had been investigated under the dispensation when international laws had been factored into the country’s laws.
The corruption laws of the country were an issue of concern for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) when it investigated the former Minister of Transportation in September last year.
Although the commission did not find the allegation of corruption proven by evidence during its investigations, it stated in its ruling, “The commission recommends the necessary processes to be initiated to upgrade our laws to meet the AU minimum standards as contained in the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and Related Offences.”
Legal practitioners and advocates contacted by the Daily Graphic on the importance of such an exercise said the domestication of the laws would expand the reach of the laws on corruption and strengthen institutions and mechanisms in preventing corruption.
International conventions and laws on corruption take into account all acts that directly or indirectly benefit a person, to the detriment of the larger social good.
Acts of corruption, under international conventions and norms, might not only be criminal in nature but could be administrative to pass of as a corrupt practice, Mr Richard Quayson, a Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ in charge of Anti-Corruption and Public Education, pointed out when contacted.
The World Bank definition of corruption encompasses patronage, nepotism and the theft of state assets, as well as the diversion of state revenues.
The definition also underscores the fact that the benefit gained from corruption does not necessary have to be financial or immediate and lists the promise or the giving of an undue payment or other advantage directly or through intermediaries to influence the committal or omission of acts for the personal benefit of public officials as corrupt practices.
Mr Quayson said the updating of the laws was in the right direction, but pointed out that for CHRAJ, updating laws on corruption, as it recommended in its ruling in the investigations concerning Dr Anane, was not to witch-hunt individuals but to improve the country’s processes, institutions and structures for dealing with corruption.
He said if the country’s laws on corruption were merged with international norms, CHRAJ would undertake a sensitisation programme for public officials to enhance compliance with the rules and regulations.
Friday, November 16, 2007
AKOSOMBO IS BACK, BUT ...
WEEKS after torrential rains hit the northern parts of the country, the Akosombo Hydroelectric Generation Station has been declared to be in good condition and operating efficiently but the threat of another energy crisis in the near future still lingers on.
All the six units of the dam, that comprises a turbine, a generator and a transformer are in perfect condition and operating at an optimal level of efficiency, after the major rehabilitation works were completed in 2005.
In the heat of the recent energy crisis, the station had operated only two of the six generation units even at peak hours because of the low level of the water in the dam. However, when the Daily Graphic visited the Station last Friday, three of the units were running, and at 256.40 feet, five of the units are operated at peak hours.
Yet, despite the marked improvement in the water level in the dam, officials of the station are threading cautiously, conscious of the fact that no major rains are expected in the next nine months.
“We have told the government that we must produce between 3200 - 3600 Giga watts hours of electricity to ensure that the water level in the dam will be around 248 feet by the time of the major inflows in June next year,” Mr Kwesi B. Amoako, plant manager of the Hydro Generation Department of Akosombo told the Daily Graphic.
He stated further that if the dam was ran at higher levels to produce, for instance, 4800 Giga watts hours of electricity then the level of the dam would run dangerously low before the rainy season next year, and that could result in another energy crisis in 2009 if the rain patterns were poor in 2008 as they had been last year.
Mr Amoako explained that the dam operated under the principle of potential energy that is dependent on the water level, hence the higher the water level the more electricity that can be generated.
He said that called for an efficient and careful management policy to keep the water level appreciably high and prevent a recurrence of the energy crisis.
“Over the years we have drawn a lot from the dam, there is now therefore the need for a careful management policy,” Mr Amoako emphasised.
Before the energy crisis in August last year, hydro electric generation met about 60 to 65 per cent of the country’s energy needs, while 35 per cent came from the Aboadze Thermal Plant, with about five per cent coming from exports from Ivory Coast.
But now the Volta River Authority (VRA) is advocating a change in the country’s energy generation policy to guarantee the optimum operation of the Akosombo Generation Station and prevent a recurrence of the energy crisis.
Under the new proposal, hydro-electric energy will complement electricity supply from thermal plants and generators, which will be the main sources of supplies.
Mr Amoako pointed out that, hydro generation, although renewable, was highly variable, depending on the pattern of rainfall and hence was not always reliable considering the country’s growing energy demands.
This is at a time of record high prices of crude oil, that has skyrocketed to alsmost $100 per barrel, and calls by some in the petroleum industry for an increased dependence on the dam for the country’s energy needs to reduce the cost of running the thermal plants brought in during the crisis by the government.
Mr Amoako conceded that although increased dependence on thermal plants and generators could mean significant increases in tariffs, that seemed to be the best way out.
He also called for the adoption of prudent conservation methods to get the country through a lean season to the next rainy season.
Now, the dam and its envirions lie serenely and idyllically beautiful in its plush greenery.
Some fishermen are back fishing on the river that hitherto had been so low that the spew gates, from where excess water from the dam could be let out, were opened widely and no water flowed out as the level lay way beneath the gates then.
“What you now see in the dam is God-sent,” Mr Amoako said with a beam on his face.
“Did you visit the station during the crisis?, he enquires.
Responding in the negative he says, “Oh, then you would have appreciated the level of water in the dam now.”
Taking advantage of the low level of water in the dam, rehabilitation works were carried on the gates, Mr Amoako added.
“Our success perhaps has been out ondoing,” Mr Amoako points out.
He said Ghanaians must now think seriously about paying real rates for the electricity they consume as managing the Station and investing to keep all equipment in shape has not been done pro bono.
For him, it is unwise for Akosombo to produce electricity and be paid rates that do not even cover their cost of production.
All the six units of the dam, that comprises a turbine, a generator and a transformer are in perfect condition and operating at an optimal level of efficiency, after the major rehabilitation works were completed in 2005.
In the heat of the recent energy crisis, the station had operated only two of the six generation units even at peak hours because of the low level of the water in the dam. However, when the Daily Graphic visited the Station last Friday, three of the units were running, and at 256.40 feet, five of the units are operated at peak hours.
Yet, despite the marked improvement in the water level in the dam, officials of the station are threading cautiously, conscious of the fact that no major rains are expected in the next nine months.
“We have told the government that we must produce between 3200 - 3600 Giga watts hours of electricity to ensure that the water level in the dam will be around 248 feet by the time of the major inflows in June next year,” Mr Kwesi B. Amoako, plant manager of the Hydro Generation Department of Akosombo told the Daily Graphic.
He stated further that if the dam was ran at higher levels to produce, for instance, 4800 Giga watts hours of electricity then the level of the dam would run dangerously low before the rainy season next year, and that could result in another energy crisis in 2009 if the rain patterns were poor in 2008 as they had been last year.
Mr Amoako explained that the dam operated under the principle of potential energy that is dependent on the water level, hence the higher the water level the more electricity that can be generated.
He said that called for an efficient and careful management policy to keep the water level appreciably high and prevent a recurrence of the energy crisis.
“Over the years we have drawn a lot from the dam, there is now therefore the need for a careful management policy,” Mr Amoako emphasised.
Before the energy crisis in August last year, hydro electric generation met about 60 to 65 per cent of the country’s energy needs, while 35 per cent came from the Aboadze Thermal Plant, with about five per cent coming from exports from Ivory Coast.
But now the Volta River Authority (VRA) is advocating a change in the country’s energy generation policy to guarantee the optimum operation of the Akosombo Generation Station and prevent a recurrence of the energy crisis.
Under the new proposal, hydro-electric energy will complement electricity supply from thermal plants and generators, which will be the main sources of supplies.
Mr Amoako pointed out that, hydro generation, although renewable, was highly variable, depending on the pattern of rainfall and hence was not always reliable considering the country’s growing energy demands.
This is at a time of record high prices of crude oil, that has skyrocketed to alsmost $100 per barrel, and calls by some in the petroleum industry for an increased dependence on the dam for the country’s energy needs to reduce the cost of running the thermal plants brought in during the crisis by the government.
Mr Amoako conceded that although increased dependence on thermal plants and generators could mean significant increases in tariffs, that seemed to be the best way out.
He also called for the adoption of prudent conservation methods to get the country through a lean season to the next rainy season.
Now, the dam and its envirions lie serenely and idyllically beautiful in its plush greenery.
Some fishermen are back fishing on the river that hitherto had been so low that the spew gates, from where excess water from the dam could be let out, were opened widely and no water flowed out as the level lay way beneath the gates then.
“What you now see in the dam is God-sent,” Mr Amoako said with a beam on his face.
“Did you visit the station during the crisis?, he enquires.
Responding in the negative he says, “Oh, then you would have appreciated the level of water in the dam now.”
Taking advantage of the low level of water in the dam, rehabilitation works were carried on the gates, Mr Amoako added.
“Our success perhaps has been out ondoing,” Mr Amoako points out.
He said Ghanaians must now think seriously about paying real rates for the electricity they consume as managing the Station and investing to keep all equipment in shape has not been done pro bono.
For him, it is unwise for Akosombo to produce electricity and be paid rates that do not even cover their cost of production.
AYENSU STARCH FACTORY TO BOUNCE BACK DECEMBER
THE Ayensu Starch Factory is to re-start operations next month, Mr Kweku Agyeman Manu, a Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and President’s Special Initiative, has disclosed.
Though the minister would not go into details, he said the factory was going through re-organisation and re-modelling to better position it as the viable manufacturing concern that it was set up to be.
Mr Manu was responding to concerns raised by Nana Fredua Agyemang Panbuo, the Executive Chairman of the Invest Pro Limited and Benkumhene of the Akaase Traditional Area in Kwabre, Ashanti Region, concerning the Ayensu Starch Factory at the 47th Annual General Meeting (AGM) Lectures of the Ghana Employers Association (GEA) in Accra.
He said the factory had been built with the small holder cassava farmer in mind for the supply of cassava, its major raw material. He noted, however, that this led to the factory not being able to receive raw materials on a consistent basis to feed the factory, one of the major problems that led to its closure.
Mr Manu was confident that with the new modelling of the factory and the participation of some local and foreign investors in the new deal, the future was brighter.
The lectures are meant to create a forum for dialogue between the GEA and its partners and issues discussed form part of work plans of the association in the subsequent year.
This year’s lecture was on the theme “The promotion of sustainable enterprise: The role of the social partners”.
In his address, the Minister emphasised the need for Africa to step up its efforts in competitively engaging in global trade, as the continent’s exports just accounted for 2.6 per cent of total global trade in 2004.
He pointed out that this was in a year that the volume of world trade had expanded by about nine per cent.
Mr Manu noted that there were challenges in every enterprise and said in spite of these challenges, the government had initiated many programmes and projects for the business sector, notable among them being the President’s Special Initiatives.
Nana Fredua, who was the chairman for the AGM, thought otherwise.
Likening the setting up of industries to marriage, he pointed out that “anyone at all can have a wedding but sustaining the marriage is the challenge”.
“You can create all the Presidential Initiatives you want and give them whatever name you want, but at the end of the day, it is sustaining it that matters,” he added.
Nana Fredua also suggested the nurturing of enterprises through a legal framework and the right policies.
He said the Procurement Act could criminalise the public procurement of goods for public institutions from foreign sources, as a measure to nurture enterprises and give a boost to such initiatives as the “Made in Ghana” brand or the “Friday wear”.
The Managing Director of Unique Trust Financial Services, Mr. Kofi Amoabeng, and the Secretary-General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Mr Kwasi Adu- Amankwah, also identified the right attitudes and conducive industrial relations as key in sustaining enterprises.
Mr Amoabeng decried the foul attitudes of Ghanaians, nepotism and malfeasance in public service and noted that these corrupted programmes and projects embarked on by the government.
Mr Adu-Amankwah emphasised the government’s role in sustaining and nurturing enterprises, stressing that the paradigm of “Government has no business doing business” had to be changed.
The Managing Director of Nestle Ghana Limited, Mr Herve Duranton, in his contribution, presented Nestle as a model of economic and social sustainability.
He pointed out that at Nestle, sustainability of all productive ventures was part of the corporate strategy, while social responsibility was not just an end in itself but an integral part of the company’s economic sustainability.
Though the minister would not go into details, he said the factory was going through re-organisation and re-modelling to better position it as the viable manufacturing concern that it was set up to be.
Mr Manu was responding to concerns raised by Nana Fredua Agyemang Panbuo, the Executive Chairman of the Invest Pro Limited and Benkumhene of the Akaase Traditional Area in Kwabre, Ashanti Region, concerning the Ayensu Starch Factory at the 47th Annual General Meeting (AGM) Lectures of the Ghana Employers Association (GEA) in Accra.
He said the factory had been built with the small holder cassava farmer in mind for the supply of cassava, its major raw material. He noted, however, that this led to the factory not being able to receive raw materials on a consistent basis to feed the factory, one of the major problems that led to its closure.
Mr Manu was confident that with the new modelling of the factory and the participation of some local and foreign investors in the new deal, the future was brighter.
The lectures are meant to create a forum for dialogue between the GEA and its partners and issues discussed form part of work plans of the association in the subsequent year.
This year’s lecture was on the theme “The promotion of sustainable enterprise: The role of the social partners”.
In his address, the Minister emphasised the need for Africa to step up its efforts in competitively engaging in global trade, as the continent’s exports just accounted for 2.6 per cent of total global trade in 2004.
He pointed out that this was in a year that the volume of world trade had expanded by about nine per cent.
Mr Manu noted that there were challenges in every enterprise and said in spite of these challenges, the government had initiated many programmes and projects for the business sector, notable among them being the President’s Special Initiatives.
Nana Fredua, who was the chairman for the AGM, thought otherwise.
Likening the setting up of industries to marriage, he pointed out that “anyone at all can have a wedding but sustaining the marriage is the challenge”.
“You can create all the Presidential Initiatives you want and give them whatever name you want, but at the end of the day, it is sustaining it that matters,” he added.
Nana Fredua also suggested the nurturing of enterprises through a legal framework and the right policies.
He said the Procurement Act could criminalise the public procurement of goods for public institutions from foreign sources, as a measure to nurture enterprises and give a boost to such initiatives as the “Made in Ghana” brand or the “Friday wear”.
The Managing Director of Unique Trust Financial Services, Mr. Kofi Amoabeng, and the Secretary-General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Mr Kwasi Adu- Amankwah, also identified the right attitudes and conducive industrial relations as key in sustaining enterprises.
Mr Amoabeng decried the foul attitudes of Ghanaians, nepotism and malfeasance in public service and noted that these corrupted programmes and projects embarked on by the government.
Mr Adu-Amankwah emphasised the government’s role in sustaining and nurturing enterprises, stressing that the paradigm of “Government has no business doing business” had to be changed.
The Managing Director of Nestle Ghana Limited, Mr Herve Duranton, in his contribution, presented Nestle as a model of economic and social sustainability.
He pointed out that at Nestle, sustainability of all productive ventures was part of the corporate strategy, while social responsibility was not just an end in itself but an integral part of the company’s economic sustainability.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
I WILL MAINTAIN INTEGRITY OF THE JUDICIARY-CJ
THE appointment and promotion of judges will be based on their level of integrity, industry and independence and no other consideration, the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, has declared.
Mrs Justice Wood was speaking to a group of judges, lawyers, anti-corruption advocates and a cross-section of the public in Accra yesterday.
She noted that integrity was not going to be the only key criterion for work and advancement in the Judicial Service but that her philosophy that “judicial integrity is key to an effective and efficient judicial system” would be brought to bear on the service.
In consonance with that philosophy, Mrs Justice Wood announced that the Judicial Service, in conjunction with other international institutions, would soon begin a training programme for all levels of judicial staff in judicial integrity and ethics.
Speaking at the launch of the findings of a study on the perception of corruption in the judiciary, titled, “Report on Judicial Corruption Monitoring Exercise in Ghana,” she said some lapses in the judicial system had been exploited by some for undeserved outcomes.
The study was conducted by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International (TI), and sponsored by the German Technical Co-operation (GTZ),
“A typical example is where the courts are overcrowded and yet a disputant wants a speedy resolution. He or she may pay ‘speed money’ to have the case disposed of expeditiously. On the other hand, where the litigant’s earnest wish is that the case never, never sees the light of day, he or she does just the opposite — “delay money” is paid to get the docket to disappear — and really, which judge who is bogged down with a whole load of cases would not be too eager to grant an adjournment when he or she is told that the file cannot be traced,” she pointed out.
Mrs Justice Wood, however, affirmed her unflinching faith in the judiciary and said the Judicial Council was committed to using all available resources at its disposal to ensure that corruption was reduced to the minimum.
She pledged that she would continue with initiatives that had already been started by her predecessor, the late Mr Justice Acquah, in addition to other measures that were to be instituted to make corruption a high risk venture in the judiciary.
In line with that, Mrs Justice Wood said she had appointed some Court of Appeal judges to oversee work in the various regions of the country.
She said she would ensure that the appointed judges quickly brought to the attention of other judges and staff the report on the judiciary by the GII and ensure its wide dissemination so that pragmatic solutions would be found to minimise the perception of corruption in the judiciary.
An overview of the report, presented by the Executive Secretary of the GII, Mr Vitus Azeem, showed that corruption in the judiciary was real.
He pointed out that the data and information gathered for the report demonstrated convincingly that the issue of corruption was not merely one of perception but reality and that it occurred with frightening regularity within the judiciary.
He said key actors in the judicial process, such as judges, lawyers, litigants and staff of the Judicial Service, were keenly aware of the existence of the problem of corruption and had themselves experienced it one way or another or knew others who had.
Outlining the recommendations in the report, Mr Azeem proposed the establishment of a complaints desk at the Supreme Court as part of the office of the Chief Justice, the active involvement of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) in regulating the conduct of lawyers, among other things.
The Board Chairman of the GII, Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, who chaired the function, pointed out that the phenomenon of corruption in the country had been and would continue to be a controversial issue.
She said while most Ghanaians believed it existed, they were not sure about the dimensions, particularly with regard to its prevalence in governmental institutions.
“Corruption is difficult to measure. Unlike other crimes, both the giver and the receiver have an interest in keeping quiet,” she pointed out.
Dr Gadzekpo said although one could not claim with any amount of certitude that perceived corruption was real corruption, one could not also easily dismiss perception as the figment of the imagination, as “it may often turn out that the gap between perception and reality is either narrow or non existent”.
She said the GII, in keeping with its core business of monitoring and advocating and fighting corruption in the country, deemed it a duty to establish a possible link between widely held perception and the reality, hence the study to provide empirical evidence of corrupt practices in the judiciary.
She said the judiciary was chosen because it was the most important institution in the fight against corruption, saying the judicial power of the state remained a key resource in the development and enforcement of anti-corruption policies.
Dr Gadzekpo emphasised the fact that to be able to hold other public officials accountable, the judiciary itself had to possess the requisite moral and ethical integrity, as well as the financial, technical and human resource to do so.
“A corrupt judiciary cannot preside over the prosecution of other corrupt public officials,” she said.
The GTZ Programme Manager of the Good Governance Programme, Dr Mechthild Runger, noted that the prevention of corruption was not only a matter of prosecuting individual perpetrators but also involved strengthening institutions and processes.
“Structures must be strong, rules enforced, the code of conduct observed; all these require institutional strengths and systematic monitoring of the works in the judiciary,” she said.
The lead researcher of the study, Mr Dominic Ayine, explained that the study was conducted on a pilot basis in Accra, Tema and Kumasi.
Mrs Justice Wood was speaking to a group of judges, lawyers, anti-corruption advocates and a cross-section of the public in Accra yesterday.
She noted that integrity was not going to be the only key criterion for work and advancement in the Judicial Service but that her philosophy that “judicial integrity is key to an effective and efficient judicial system” would be brought to bear on the service.
In consonance with that philosophy, Mrs Justice Wood announced that the Judicial Service, in conjunction with other international institutions, would soon begin a training programme for all levels of judicial staff in judicial integrity and ethics.
Speaking at the launch of the findings of a study on the perception of corruption in the judiciary, titled, “Report on Judicial Corruption Monitoring Exercise in Ghana,” she said some lapses in the judicial system had been exploited by some for undeserved outcomes.
The study was conducted by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International (TI), and sponsored by the German Technical Co-operation (GTZ),
“A typical example is where the courts are overcrowded and yet a disputant wants a speedy resolution. He or she may pay ‘speed money’ to have the case disposed of expeditiously. On the other hand, where the litigant’s earnest wish is that the case never, never sees the light of day, he or she does just the opposite — “delay money” is paid to get the docket to disappear — and really, which judge who is bogged down with a whole load of cases would not be too eager to grant an adjournment when he or she is told that the file cannot be traced,” she pointed out.
Mrs Justice Wood, however, affirmed her unflinching faith in the judiciary and said the Judicial Council was committed to using all available resources at its disposal to ensure that corruption was reduced to the minimum.
She pledged that she would continue with initiatives that had already been started by her predecessor, the late Mr Justice Acquah, in addition to other measures that were to be instituted to make corruption a high risk venture in the judiciary.
In line with that, Mrs Justice Wood said she had appointed some Court of Appeal judges to oversee work in the various regions of the country.
She said she would ensure that the appointed judges quickly brought to the attention of other judges and staff the report on the judiciary by the GII and ensure its wide dissemination so that pragmatic solutions would be found to minimise the perception of corruption in the judiciary.
An overview of the report, presented by the Executive Secretary of the GII, Mr Vitus Azeem, showed that corruption in the judiciary was real.
He pointed out that the data and information gathered for the report demonstrated convincingly that the issue of corruption was not merely one of perception but reality and that it occurred with frightening regularity within the judiciary.
He said key actors in the judicial process, such as judges, lawyers, litigants and staff of the Judicial Service, were keenly aware of the existence of the problem of corruption and had themselves experienced it one way or another or knew others who had.
Outlining the recommendations in the report, Mr Azeem proposed the establishment of a complaints desk at the Supreme Court as part of the office of the Chief Justice, the active involvement of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) in regulating the conduct of lawyers, among other things.
The Board Chairman of the GII, Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, who chaired the function, pointed out that the phenomenon of corruption in the country had been and would continue to be a controversial issue.
She said while most Ghanaians believed it existed, they were not sure about the dimensions, particularly with regard to its prevalence in governmental institutions.
“Corruption is difficult to measure. Unlike other crimes, both the giver and the receiver have an interest in keeping quiet,” she pointed out.
Dr Gadzekpo said although one could not claim with any amount of certitude that perceived corruption was real corruption, one could not also easily dismiss perception as the figment of the imagination, as “it may often turn out that the gap between perception and reality is either narrow or non existent”.
She said the GII, in keeping with its core business of monitoring and advocating and fighting corruption in the country, deemed it a duty to establish a possible link between widely held perception and the reality, hence the study to provide empirical evidence of corrupt practices in the judiciary.
She said the judiciary was chosen because it was the most important institution in the fight against corruption, saying the judicial power of the state remained a key resource in the development and enforcement of anti-corruption policies.
Dr Gadzekpo emphasised the fact that to be able to hold other public officials accountable, the judiciary itself had to possess the requisite moral and ethical integrity, as well as the financial, technical and human resource to do so.
“A corrupt judiciary cannot preside over the prosecution of other corrupt public officials,” she said.
The GTZ Programme Manager of the Good Governance Programme, Dr Mechthild Runger, noted that the prevention of corruption was not only a matter of prosecuting individual perpetrators but also involved strengthening institutions and processes.
“Structures must be strong, rules enforced, the code of conduct observed; all these require institutional strengths and systematic monitoring of the works in the judiciary,” she said.
The lead researcher of the study, Mr Dominic Ayine, explained that the study was conducted on a pilot basis in Accra, Tema and Kumasi.
‘STRENGTHEN HOUSES OF CHIEFS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES’
A Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Brobbey, has called for the strengthening of the Regional and National Houses of Chiefs for the expeditious resolution of potentially explosive chieftaincy issues.
He said that would prevent conflicts and help resolve protracted chieftaincy disputes.
He also proposed that chiefs needed to assert themselves and use their authority to strengthen the institution and make it better to serve the nation.
At a day’s seminar on “Knowledge Exchange on Customary Law Traditions in Ghana,” Justice Brobbey, who is finalising his drafts for a book on the chieftaincy institution, underscored the relevance of the institution to the development of laws and social cohesion in the country.
The seminar was organised by the Judicial Service of Ghana, the Canadian University Services Organisation (CUSA-Ghana) and the National Judicial Institute, Canada, with sponsorship from CIDA.
It forms part of a collaborative programme between the Judicial Service of Ghana and Canada, under which knowledge is shared through exchange programmes and seminars.
Justice Brobbey’s presentation was based on his research findings on chieftaincy and customary law. Speaking on the topic “The General Role of Traditional Authorities in the Development of Customary Law”, he noted that the customary law predated all laws.
Justice Brobbey said chiefs had played an important role in the development of customary laws, thereby making such laws part of the laws of the country recognised by the Constitution.
He said some progressive chiefs had gone further to shape some customs to conform to changes in the social set-up and cited cases in which while pouring libation, some chiefs, in order to embrace the concerns of others, made concessions and referred to deities others also believed in.
A former Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Justice and Executive Director of the National Judicial Institute, Justice Brian W. Lennox, in his remarks, said the partnership would enable participants from Canada to have a better understanding of customary law.
The country representative of CUSO-Ghana, Mr Lawrence Amesu, said an important outcome of the partnership of the institutions was the mutual sharing of information and ideas.
Prof Justice Modibo Ocran, another justice of the Supreme Court, Dr Josiah Ayeh of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon and Dr Daanaa????????, a Principal Research Officer of the Chieftaincy Secretariat and National House of Chiefs, also presented papers, while the Juabenhene, Nana Oti Boateng and the Queen of the Tefle Traditional Area, Mama Asigble, made contributions.
He said that would prevent conflicts and help resolve protracted chieftaincy disputes.
He also proposed that chiefs needed to assert themselves and use their authority to strengthen the institution and make it better to serve the nation.
At a day’s seminar on “Knowledge Exchange on Customary Law Traditions in Ghana,” Justice Brobbey, who is finalising his drafts for a book on the chieftaincy institution, underscored the relevance of the institution to the development of laws and social cohesion in the country.
The seminar was organised by the Judicial Service of Ghana, the Canadian University Services Organisation (CUSA-Ghana) and the National Judicial Institute, Canada, with sponsorship from CIDA.
It forms part of a collaborative programme between the Judicial Service of Ghana and Canada, under which knowledge is shared through exchange programmes and seminars.
Justice Brobbey’s presentation was based on his research findings on chieftaincy and customary law. Speaking on the topic “The General Role of Traditional Authorities in the Development of Customary Law”, he noted that the customary law predated all laws.
Justice Brobbey said chiefs had played an important role in the development of customary laws, thereby making such laws part of the laws of the country recognised by the Constitution.
He said some progressive chiefs had gone further to shape some customs to conform to changes in the social set-up and cited cases in which while pouring libation, some chiefs, in order to embrace the concerns of others, made concessions and referred to deities others also believed in.
A former Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Justice and Executive Director of the National Judicial Institute, Justice Brian W. Lennox, in his remarks, said the partnership would enable participants from Canada to have a better understanding of customary law.
The country representative of CUSO-Ghana, Mr Lawrence Amesu, said an important outcome of the partnership of the institutions was the mutual sharing of information and ideas.
Prof Justice Modibo Ocran, another justice of the Supreme Court, Dr Josiah Ayeh of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon and Dr Daanaa????????, a Principal Research Officer of the Chieftaincy Secretariat and National House of Chiefs, also presented papers, while the Juabenhene, Nana Oti Boateng and the Queen of the Tefle Traditional Area, Mama Asigble, made contributions.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
STRENGTHEN HOUSE OF CHIEFS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES
A Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Brobbey, has called for the strengthening of the Regional and National Houses of Chiefs for the expeditious resolution of potentially explosive chieftaincy issues.
He said that would prevent conflicts and help resolve protracted chieftaincy disputes.
He also proposed that chiefs needed to assert themselves and use their authority to strengthen the institution and make it better to serve the nation.
At a day’s seminar on “Knowledge Exchange on Customary Law Traditions in Ghana,” Justice Brobbey, who is finalising his drafts for a book on the chieftaincy institution, underscored the relevance of the institution to the development of laws and social cohesion in the country.
The seminar was organised by the Judicial Service of Ghana, the Canadian University Services Organisation (CUSA-Ghana) and the National Judicial Institute, Canada, with sponsorship from CIDA.
It forms part of a collaborative programme between the Judicial Service of Ghana and Canada, under which knowledge is shared through exchange programmes and seminars.
Justice Brobbey’s presentation was based on his research findings on chieftaincy and customary law. Speaking on the topic “The General Role of Traditional Authorities in the Development of Customary Law”, he noted that the customary law predated all laws.
Justice Brobbey said chiefs had played an important role in the development of customary laws, thereby making such laws part of the laws of the country recognised by the Constitution.
He said some progressive chiefs had gone further to shape some customs to conform to changes in the social set-up and cited cases in which while pouring libation, some chiefs, in order to embrace the concerns of others, made concessions and referred to deities others also believed in.
A former Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Justice and Executive Director of the National Judicial Institute, Justice Brian W. Lennox, in his remarks, said the partnership would enable participants from Canada to have a better understanding of customary law.
The country representative of CUSO-Ghana, Mr Lawrence Amesu, said an important outcome of the partnership of the institutions was the mutual sharing of information and ideas.
Prof Justice Modibo Ocran, another justice of the Supreme Court, Dr Josiah Ayeh of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon and Dr Daanaa????????, a Principal Research Officer of the Chieftaincy Secretariat and National House of Chiefs, also presented papers, while the Juabenhene, Nana Oti Boateng and the Queen of the Tefle Traditional Area, Mama Asigble, made contributions.
He said that would prevent conflicts and help resolve protracted chieftaincy disputes.
He also proposed that chiefs needed to assert themselves and use their authority to strengthen the institution and make it better to serve the nation.
At a day’s seminar on “Knowledge Exchange on Customary Law Traditions in Ghana,” Justice Brobbey, who is finalising his drafts for a book on the chieftaincy institution, underscored the relevance of the institution to the development of laws and social cohesion in the country.
The seminar was organised by the Judicial Service of Ghana, the Canadian University Services Organisation (CUSA-Ghana) and the National Judicial Institute, Canada, with sponsorship from CIDA.
It forms part of a collaborative programme between the Judicial Service of Ghana and Canada, under which knowledge is shared through exchange programmes and seminars.
Justice Brobbey’s presentation was based on his research findings on chieftaincy and customary law. Speaking on the topic “The General Role of Traditional Authorities in the Development of Customary Law”, he noted that the customary law predated all laws.
Justice Brobbey said chiefs had played an important role in the development of customary laws, thereby making such laws part of the laws of the country recognised by the Constitution.
He said some progressive chiefs had gone further to shape some customs to conform to changes in the social set-up and cited cases in which while pouring libation, some chiefs, in order to embrace the concerns of others, made concessions and referred to deities others also believed in.
A former Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Justice and Executive Director of the National Judicial Institute, Justice Brian W. Lennox, in his remarks, said the partnership would enable participants from Canada to have a better understanding of customary law.
The country representative of CUSO-Ghana, Mr Lawrence Amesu, said an important outcome of the partnership of the institutions was the mutual sharing of information and ideas.
Prof Justice Modibo Ocran, another justice of the Supreme Court, Dr Josiah Ayeh of the Faculty of Law, University of Ghana, Legon and Dr Daanaa????????, a Principal Research Officer of the Chieftaincy Secretariat and National House of Chiefs, also presented papers, while the Juabenhene, Nana Oti Boateng and the Queen of the Tefle Traditional Area, Mama Asigble, made contributions.
NIA RECEIVES REGISTRATION EQUIPMENT
THE National Identification Authority (NIA) yesterday received 100 Mobile Registration Work Stations (MRWSs) at a brief ceremony at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).
The MRWSs are handy registration equipment that will capture the fingerprints, facial features and other information about the applicants when registration begins for the National Identification System (NIS).
They are able to record the data on 20,000 people daily and run verification and authentication checks to do away with duplication and multiple registration on the spot.
The 100 MRWSs are part of a total consignment of 1510 that will be used for the national exercise.
Receiving the freight documents on the MRWSs from customs officials and freight forwarders, Prof Ernest Dumor, the Executive Secretary of the NIA, said the first set would be used to train 60 ICT personnel who will then train 1600 mobile registration work station operators to be deployed for the national exercise.
SEGEM, the technical solution providers of the NIA, will train the 60 trainers, and according to him, a list of the 60 had already been made while training sites had already been identified.
The NIA, he said, was awaiting the arrival of SAGEM officials to begin training in about two weeks.
Prof Dumor said the MRWSs had been customised to the needs of the country, based on results from a pilot test.
However, he said what had arrived would be tested again to ensure they met all the requirements.
The second consignment of 1410 MRWSs are expected into the country by the end of the year.
The MRWSs are handy registration equipment that will capture the fingerprints, facial features and other information about the applicants when registration begins for the National Identification System (NIS).
They are able to record the data on 20,000 people daily and run verification and authentication checks to do away with duplication and multiple registration on the spot.
The 100 MRWSs are part of a total consignment of 1510 that will be used for the national exercise.
Receiving the freight documents on the MRWSs from customs officials and freight forwarders, Prof Ernest Dumor, the Executive Secretary of the NIA, said the first set would be used to train 60 ICT personnel who will then train 1600 mobile registration work station operators to be deployed for the national exercise.
SEGEM, the technical solution providers of the NIA, will train the 60 trainers, and according to him, a list of the 60 had already been made while training sites had already been identified.
The NIA, he said, was awaiting the arrival of SAGEM officials to begin training in about two weeks.
Prof Dumor said the MRWSs had been customised to the needs of the country, based on results from a pilot test.
However, he said what had arrived would be tested again to ensure they met all the requirements.
The second consignment of 1410 MRWSs are expected into the country by the end of the year.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
GHANA'S NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM IS AN ALL INCLUSIVE ONE-PROF DUMOR
Story: Caroline Boateng
The Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Professor Ernest Dumor, has emphasised the all–inclusiveness of the National Identification System (NIS).
“After reviewing other identification systems in Rwanda and Germany, we came to the full conclusion that this system is to unite rather than divide. We want to have a system that is more inclusive than exclusive,” he stressed, adding that for that matter, ethnic and religious data of Ghanaians would not be collected at the time of registration.
Prof Dumor was speaking at a day’s workshop on Data Capture (Registration) Protection of Personal Information and Privacy draft bill organised by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Parliamentary Research Department in Accra.
The workshop brought together drafters, parliamentarians, civil society groups, trade unions and other members of the public.
The government’s advisor on the Right of Information Legislation, Mr Justice V.C.R.C.A. Crabbe; the People’s National Convention (PNC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Zebilla and Member of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, Mr John Ndebugre; the MP for South Tongu, Mr Ken Dzirasah, and the MP for Evalue Gwira, Mr Kojo Armah, who also chaired the programme, shared views on the bill and how it could be made to better serve the country.
Prof Dumor, giving an overview of the draft bill, said in drafting it, the focus had been to maintain a balance between the national interest and the privacy of individuals.
He said although the bill, when passed into law, would made it compulsory for people to register, all Ghanaians had to bear in mind that the purpose of the bill was to locate every citizen for good governance initiatives.
He stressed that the information that would be collected on individuals was for civil purposes related to development, planning and administration of the resources of the country.
Prof Dumor, however, pointed out that other agencies, when faced with an identity problem, could be helped by comparing and authenticating their information with that of the database of the NIS.
A lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, Legon, Prof Kofi Quashigah, presenting a legal appraisal of the bill, stressed the need for policy makers to resolve any misgiving on the part of the public by decriminalising aspects of the bill that made the non-possession of the identity card at any particular time an offence.
He said the NIA had to show the capacity to manage the information collected from individuals and ensure that other agencies that would rely on such information followed procedure.
He added that portions of the bill that allowed security institutions access to the information of individuals for the purposes of investigations and prosecution but prevented the individual from getting the same information were against the principle of mutuality and fairness.
A member of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr Charles Karla, contributing, said he had been a recipient of an identity card that was issued in the 1970s but said after receiving it, the programme fizzled out.
He, therefore, urged the speedy implementation of the NIS and the issuance of durable cards when implementation was fully rolled out.
Mr Ndebugre, in an interview later, said the programme had received the support of all in Parliament because of the belief that the NIS was in the interest of all Ghanaians.
The Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Professor Ernest Dumor, has emphasised the all–inclusiveness of the National Identification System (NIS).
“After reviewing other identification systems in Rwanda and Germany, we came to the full conclusion that this system is to unite rather than divide. We want to have a system that is more inclusive than exclusive,” he stressed, adding that for that matter, ethnic and religious data of Ghanaians would not be collected at the time of registration.
Prof Dumor was speaking at a day’s workshop on Data Capture (Registration) Protection of Personal Information and Privacy draft bill organised by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Parliamentary Research Department in Accra.
The workshop brought together drafters, parliamentarians, civil society groups, trade unions and other members of the public.
The government’s advisor on the Right of Information Legislation, Mr Justice V.C.R.C.A. Crabbe; the People’s National Convention (PNC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Zebilla and Member of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of Parliament, Mr John Ndebugre; the MP for South Tongu, Mr Ken Dzirasah, and the MP for Evalue Gwira, Mr Kojo Armah, who also chaired the programme, shared views on the bill and how it could be made to better serve the country.
Prof Dumor, giving an overview of the draft bill, said in drafting it, the focus had been to maintain a balance between the national interest and the privacy of individuals.
He said although the bill, when passed into law, would made it compulsory for people to register, all Ghanaians had to bear in mind that the purpose of the bill was to locate every citizen for good governance initiatives.
He stressed that the information that would be collected on individuals was for civil purposes related to development, planning and administration of the resources of the country.
Prof Dumor, however, pointed out that other agencies, when faced with an identity problem, could be helped by comparing and authenticating their information with that of the database of the NIS.
A lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana, Legon, Prof Kofi Quashigah, presenting a legal appraisal of the bill, stressed the need for policy makers to resolve any misgiving on the part of the public by decriminalising aspects of the bill that made the non-possession of the identity card at any particular time an offence.
He said the NIA had to show the capacity to manage the information collected from individuals and ensure that other agencies that would rely on such information followed procedure.
He added that portions of the bill that allowed security institutions access to the information of individuals for the purposes of investigations and prosecution but prevented the individual from getting the same information were against the principle of mutuality and fairness.
A member of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr Charles Karla, contributing, said he had been a recipient of an identity card that was issued in the 1970s but said after receiving it, the programme fizzled out.
He, therefore, urged the speedy implementation of the NIS and the issuance of durable cards when implementation was fully rolled out.
Mr Ndebugre, in an interview later, said the programme had received the support of all in Parliament because of the belief that the NIS was in the interest of all Ghanaians.
OFFICE OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO CONDUCT CORRUPTION SURVEY
Story: Caroline Boateng
THE Office of Accountability (OA) has said it is going ahead with its plans to conduct a nation-wide survey on a corruption index.
The Daily Graphic issue of Friday, August 24, 2007, reported that the office was embarking on a corruption survey, which would reveal in reality corruption and not its perception as other studies tended to publish.
The revelations at the public hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on widespread corruption and malfeasance in the public service, have confirmed the hunch of Prof Kwabena Konadu Oduro, the Chairman of the OA, who told the Daily Graphic that he was going ahead with the study.
He said he felt only a slight vindication at the revelations, adding that the AO’s announced intention of undertaking a corruption index was borne out of its observations and studies that showed that corruption was prevalent in the public service rather than among political leaders as the perception was.
He said the study, which would give a corruption index rather than a perception of it, was far advanced and would be administered nation-wide.
According to him, when completed, it would present the country with facts on the prevalence of corruption for the its own confidence, instead of relying on studies of international bodies who documented only indicators on the perception of corruption they were not conversant with.
He said it would also be used to monitor and help in formulating strategies to prevent malfeasance in public service, all in line with ensuring good governance that was a key function of the OA.
Prof Oduro mentioned prosecution as one solution to stem the widespread malfeasance in the public service but emphasised monitoring and supervision of public service business as a key measure and more permanent answer.
He said in line with the office’s mandate as an in-house corruption preventive mechanism, it was currently strategising on institutions to ensure thorough monitoring of the resources of Ghanaians.
He explained that that might include the setting up of monitoring teams who would supervise to ensure that resources were used for what they were intended for.
Thus, through spot checks, these working groups, he said, would visit ministries and districts to verify if, for instance, a road tendered for was what had been constructed and if the money put in the construction was what was budgeted for.
On the law on causing financial loss to the state, Prof Oduro said he did not mind whether the law was amended or scrapped for, according to him, there were other laws in the statute books to ensure that those who were found doing wrong were held responsible.
Contributing, the head of Communications of the OA, Mr Kwamena Longdon, drew attention to the fact that most revelations at the PAC were primarily on financial administration and not on procurement, where ministers had a real stake and where lots of money were involved.
He said that was evidence of the sharpness of the monitoring of the OA, as it would make sure that all the provisions stipulated under the procurement act were adhered to.
Meanwhile other views solicited from the civil society organisations show that everybody is eager to see the measures that the government would institute to ensure an accountable public service.
Mr Steve Manteaw of the Centre for Budget Advocacy of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) proposed two immediate remedial actions that the government had to come out with.
The first was the recovery of money lost and the second, the need for the due processes of law to apply to those who were found to be part of the corrupt acts.
Mr Manteaw said the Attorney General, Mr Joe Ghartey, needed to evoke the law on “causing financial loss to the state” in so far as it had not been expunged from the law books.
Mr Manteaw said he was not surprised by the findings of the committee because corruption in the public service had been touted yearly in reports such as the Transparency International reports.
He, however, expressed his disappointed about the lack of will on the part of the government to pursue vigorously its motto of zero tolerance for corruption.
“When we spoke about corruption, they often said we had to provide evidence. Now this is the evidence they have,” he added.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Haruna Iddrissu, agreed that anyone found to be guilty had to face the full rigours of the law.
He said corruption had to be made “a high risk” crime by meting out punishment in a manner to deter others.
Mr Iddrissu added that there was the need for the application of wide ranging measures, such as the enforcement of rules and regulations in the public sector.
The Executive Director of the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Ms Florence Denise, for her part, said institutional procedures in the public service had to be strengthened and monitored properly.
THE Office of Accountability (OA) has said it is going ahead with its plans to conduct a nation-wide survey on a corruption index.
The Daily Graphic issue of Friday, August 24, 2007, reported that the office was embarking on a corruption survey, which would reveal in reality corruption and not its perception as other studies tended to publish.
The revelations at the public hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on widespread corruption and malfeasance in the public service, have confirmed the hunch of Prof Kwabena Konadu Oduro, the Chairman of the OA, who told the Daily Graphic that he was going ahead with the study.
He said he felt only a slight vindication at the revelations, adding that the AO’s announced intention of undertaking a corruption index was borne out of its observations and studies that showed that corruption was prevalent in the public service rather than among political leaders as the perception was.
He said the study, which would give a corruption index rather than a perception of it, was far advanced and would be administered nation-wide.
According to him, when completed, it would present the country with facts on the prevalence of corruption for the its own confidence, instead of relying on studies of international bodies who documented only indicators on the perception of corruption they were not conversant with.
He said it would also be used to monitor and help in formulating strategies to prevent malfeasance in public service, all in line with ensuring good governance that was a key function of the OA.
Prof Oduro mentioned prosecution as one solution to stem the widespread malfeasance in the public service but emphasised monitoring and supervision of public service business as a key measure and more permanent answer.
He said in line with the office’s mandate as an in-house corruption preventive mechanism, it was currently strategising on institutions to ensure thorough monitoring of the resources of Ghanaians.
He explained that that might include the setting up of monitoring teams who would supervise to ensure that resources were used for what they were intended for.
Thus, through spot checks, these working groups, he said, would visit ministries and districts to verify if, for instance, a road tendered for was what had been constructed and if the money put in the construction was what was budgeted for.
On the law on causing financial loss to the state, Prof Oduro said he did not mind whether the law was amended or scrapped for, according to him, there were other laws in the statute books to ensure that those who were found doing wrong were held responsible.
Contributing, the head of Communications of the OA, Mr Kwamena Longdon, drew attention to the fact that most revelations at the PAC were primarily on financial administration and not on procurement, where ministers had a real stake and where lots of money were involved.
He said that was evidence of the sharpness of the monitoring of the OA, as it would make sure that all the provisions stipulated under the procurement act were adhered to.
Meanwhile other views solicited from the civil society organisations show that everybody is eager to see the measures that the government would institute to ensure an accountable public service.
Mr Steve Manteaw of the Centre for Budget Advocacy of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) proposed two immediate remedial actions that the government had to come out with.
The first was the recovery of money lost and the second, the need for the due processes of law to apply to those who were found to be part of the corrupt acts.
Mr Manteaw said the Attorney General, Mr Joe Ghartey, needed to evoke the law on “causing financial loss to the state” in so far as it had not been expunged from the law books.
Mr Manteaw said he was not surprised by the findings of the committee because corruption in the public service had been touted yearly in reports such as the Transparency International reports.
He, however, expressed his disappointed about the lack of will on the part of the government to pursue vigorously its motto of zero tolerance for corruption.
“When we spoke about corruption, they often said we had to provide evidence. Now this is the evidence they have,” he added.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Haruna Iddrissu, agreed that anyone found to be guilty had to face the full rigours of the law.
He said corruption had to be made “a high risk” crime by meting out punishment in a manner to deter others.
Mr Iddrissu added that there was the need for the application of wide ranging measures, such as the enforcement of rules and regulations in the public sector.
The Executive Director of the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Ms Florence Denise, for her part, said institutional procedures in the public service had to be strengthened and monitored properly.
GHANA'S NATIONAL DATA CENTRE NEARS COMPLETION
Story: Caroline Boateng
A six story national data centre, that will be the nerve centre of the National Identification System (NIS) is nearing completion.
The building, described by the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Ernest Dumor, as “a security driven facility,” will be the head quarters of the NIA from where all operations, including, data management and storage and issuance of identity cards would be done.
The six storey facility has a pent house at the top where water tanks and other utility equipment would be kept.
It has a basement, where delivery vans would off-load and on-load materials for the operations of the NIA, eliminating the possibility of any security risks in the transportation of the NIA’s materials.
Apart from that, the facility has a cafeteria and a gym for workers, and according to Prof Dumor, workers of the NIA had to be physically and mentally fit for the job, hence the facility.
The building is designed by architects, Design Networks, who are also managing the construction.
It can withstand any outward and inward threats and intrusions, and it is the expectation of the NIA that the building would be completed by the first quarter of next year.
On a tour of the facility with Prof Dumor and the Site Representative, Togbi Baku IV, workers were seen installing cables and pipes air-conditioning equipment and water tanks.
Taking the Daily Graphic round the facility, Prof Dumor said expectation was that the facility would be ready by the first quarter of next for operations to begin there.
A six story national data centre, that will be the nerve centre of the National Identification System (NIS) is nearing completion.
The building, described by the Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Prof Ernest Dumor, as “a security driven facility,” will be the head quarters of the NIA from where all operations, including, data management and storage and issuance of identity cards would be done.
The six storey facility has a pent house at the top where water tanks and other utility equipment would be kept.
It has a basement, where delivery vans would off-load and on-load materials for the operations of the NIA, eliminating the possibility of any security risks in the transportation of the NIA’s materials.
Apart from that, the facility has a cafeteria and a gym for workers, and according to Prof Dumor, workers of the NIA had to be physically and mentally fit for the job, hence the facility.
The building is designed by architects, Design Networks, who are also managing the construction.
It can withstand any outward and inward threats and intrusions, and it is the expectation of the NIA that the building would be completed by the first quarter of next year.
On a tour of the facility with Prof Dumor and the Site Representative, Togbi Baku IV, workers were seen installing cables and pipes air-conditioning equipment and water tanks.
Taking the Daily Graphic round the facility, Prof Dumor said expectation was that the facility would be ready by the first quarter of next for operations to begin there.
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