VINCENT ADEDZE'S STORIES

CHURCHES CHARGED TO FIGHT CRIME AMONG YOUTH (PAGE 19, JAN 8, 2011)

2011-01-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

THE Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, has charged the clergy to urgently put in place mechanisms to help stem the tide of unbridled criminal activities and lawlessness perpetrated by the youth.
He stressed the need for intensive youth evangelisation as a way of addressing the growing lawlessness, indiscipline and ungodly behaviour among the youth in the country.
Mr Mabengba was addressing the opening ceremony of the 23rd National Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Diocesan Priests Associations (NUGDPA) in Tamale.
It was on the theme, “Reconciliation, Justice and Peace: The deepest aspiration of the Catholic Priest”.
According to the minister, it was the responsibility of parents and priests to inculcate in the youth good moral values and virtues such as the fear of God.
“I need not remind you that diocesan priests must live up to their role as partners with the state in the process of social development and transformation. Indeed, the church and the state are complementary in seeking the spiritual and material well-being of the people,” he pointed out.
Mr Mabengba used the occasion to commend the Catholic Church for its immense contribution in providing social amenities and further urged it to extend those amenities to the rural areas.
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, the Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle, entreated Catholic priests to be ambassadors of God’s reconciliation and bear the fruit of God’s own peace, not the peace of the world.
The Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Mr Paul Victor Obeng, said priests had the moral obligation to heal the rancour in families as a prerequisite for national reconciliation.
“As priests, you may be insulted in the process of reconciliation but the end of that process is rewarding, as it brings about peace. You must be agents of reconciliation, not agents of division,” he stated.
The Catholic Archbishop of Tamale, the Most Reverend Philip Naameh, pointed out that events in Cote d’Ivoire should teach Ghanaians that the “worldly ambitions of absolute power, wealth and holding on to entrenched positions can never be employed to achieve reconciliation, justice and peace”.
The President of NUGDPA, Father John Louis, noted that the union, which was founded in 1976, had, over the years, grown from eight diocesan associations with 150 priests to the current 20 diocesan associations with membership of 1,300 priests.
He said the congress hoped to achieve, among other things, reconciliation, justice and peace, as well as seek ways for members to be more effective animators, agents, promoters and collaborators of reconciliation, justice and peace in churches, communities, the nation and on the African continent.

CHANGE OF GOVT WON'T AFFECT SADA (PAGE 42, DEC 22, 2010)

2010-12-22T02:39:00.000-08:00

THE Development Policy Advisor at the Office of the Vice President, Dr Sulley Gariba, has observed that the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) has come to stay.
He stated that the basic components of SADA and its objectives would not be affected by the continuous change in government in the years to come.
Dr Gariba was reacting to concerns from some technical experts in Tamale to the effect that SADA must have a sustainable plan to ensure continuity of the programmes for the benefit of the people in northern Ghana.
He made the observation at a three-day technical roundtable conference on flood mitigation and development programme for Northern Savannah organised under the auspices of SADA.
More than 40 experts drawn from the Water Resources the Commission, the Volta River Authority, the Ghana Institution of Surveyors, Institution of Engineers, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the University for Development Studies, Community Water and Sanitation Agency, district assemblies and regional co-ordinating councils in northern Ghana attended the conference.
Selected media practitioners also participated in the discussion, which was designed to review existing strategies for integrated water resources management and flood control, define long-term strategies for converting flood waters into productive uses.
The conference followed an urgent call from the Vice-President, Mr John Mahama, on technical experts to convene and provide the government with a long-term solution to the flooding in northern Ghana.
Dr Gariba further stated that although the nomenclature of SADA might change from “time to time and from regime to regime, its basic thrust will remain the same”.
He said political commitment towards the successful implementation of SADA “was a tricky matter” but stressed that demands from entire citizenry, particularly those from the northern Ghana, would put governments on their toes in the years ahead.
Touching on funding for SADA implementation, he stated that there were three-pronged approaches, including regular budgetary allocation to the sector, donor and private sector funding and the proposition of a formula for funding under a law that was yet to be promulgated to help charge levies on petroleum products for the SADA funding.
The SADA Technical Team Leader, Dr Charles Jebuni, said the SADA was meant to provide additional funding to supplement the regular budgetary allocations to relevant institutions, including ministries and departments.
“SADA is not meant to reduce these budgetary allocations to the various sectors; it has been given the mandate to facilitate development in northern savannah”, Dr Jebuni stressed.
According to him, SADA was meant to address three main issues, namely, bridging the gap between northern and southern Ghana, long-term adaptation to climate changes and short-term development and security.

COTTON FIRM TO UNDERGO RESTRUCTURING (PAGE 29, DEC 8, 2010)

2010-12-10T04:27:00.000-08:00

THE government is to restructure the Ghana Cotton Company Limited (GCCL) and make it more viable.
As a result, the government is holding consultations with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to set out modalities for the exercise.
The proposed modalities involve assessing the company’s debt burden, the viability of the restructuring exercise and the nature of ownership agreement, among others.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mahama Ayariga, made this known in Tamale during an interaction with management and staff of the company.
The interaction followed recent industrial action by workers of the company to demand the dismissal of management to pave the way for the formation of an interim management to run the distressed company.
Mr Ayariga said it was the government’s target to put in place effective mechanisms to ensure that the nation produced not less than 30,000 metric tonnes of cotton by next year.
“We are confident that this is achievable through teamwork, transparency and dedication,” he pointed out.
He announced that in order to avoid “cheating of cotton farmers” and to fix realistic prices for cotton, a national committee comprising a team of cotton experts, the IFC, World Bank, Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture would be formed.
Mr Ayariga further explained that the country would be divided into four zones, namely the North Eastern, North Western, North Central and Northern Brong Ahafo and Volta Regions.
He said companies would be invited to engage in serious production of cotton in the four zones to help achieve targets in the industry.
He said activities such as land preparation, farmer mobilisation, input supply, and facilities for the evacuation of cotton from the farms to the ginneries would be undertaken by the selected companies.
The minister entreated workers to suspend their strike and work with their management while government resolved the problem.
The workers indicated that they had lost confidence in the management because of the fact that they “supervised operational losses for the past decade and we do not think they have the capacity to turn around the fortunes of the company”.
They, however, expressed appreciation to the government for the cotton support programme, saying “had it not been for your timely intervention, the company would have been on its knees”.
The workers equally appealed to the government to conduct a forensic audit into the operations of the company over the past 10 years.

FORUM TO SENSITISE PUBLIC TO POLLS (PAGE 13, DEC 7, 2010)

2010-12-10T03:47:00.001-08:00

A day’s regional forum to help sensitise the public to the forthcoming District Assembly Elections has been held in Tamale.
It was on the theme: “Harnessing the resources of the Electoral Commission (EC), National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and Information Services Department (ISD) for improved citizen participation in the 2010 district level elections.”
The EC, in collaboration with KAB Consult, organised it. District Officers of the EC, the NCCE and ISD in the northern region attended the forum.
The officers discussed, among other issues, the mode of collaboration and strategies for disseminating information.
Addressing the participants, the Deputy Commissioner of the EC in charge of Finance and Administration, Mr David Adeenze-Kangah, said the need to get persons with disabilities involved in the elections and make sure that political parties were not allowed to turn the district assembly elections into partisan politics was a major challenge to the EC.
“We must not encounter the kind of rancour that characterises general elections and that is why we are keeping political parties out of it” Mr Adeenze-Kangah pointed out.
According to him, the mounting of platforms to expose the candidates to the electorate was equally critical.
He intimated that there would be only one unit committee member in every electoral area.
The deputy commissioner said the EC started making reforms in the district level elections to ensure that the district assembly structures were more attractive to prospective candidates.
He noted that the attendance at the forum was encouraging, which was a clear manifestation of the commitment of the EC, NCCE and ISD towards a successful election.
The Regional Director of the EC, Mr Sylvester Kanyi, said in spite of concerns being raised about the delays in holding the elections, his outfit would do all it could to make the election successful to justify the delays and to inform people that a lot of preparation were made to make it succeed.
He observed that the forum was aimed at enlightening the participants on the dynamics of the elections and equip them with the requisite skills to effectively engage in information dissemination.
An EC member, Hajia Sa-adatu Maida, stressed the need for more women representation in the assemblies so that they could contribute their quota to the decision making process.

COTTON FIRM TO UNDERGO RESTRUCTURING (BACK PAGE, DEC 3, 2010)

2010-12-05T23:55:00.000-08:00

THE government is to restructure the Ghana Cotton Company Limited (GCCL) and make it more viable.
As a result, the government is holding consultations with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to set out modalities for the exercise.
The proposed modalities involve assessing the company’s debt burden, the viability of the restructuring exercise and the nature of ownership agreement among others.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mahama Ayariga, made this known in Tamale during an interaction with management and staff of the company.
The interaction followed recent industrial action by workers of the company to demand the dismissal of management to pave the way for the formation of an interim management to run the distressed company.
Mr Ayariga said it was the government’s target to put in place effective mechanisms to ensure that the nation produced not less than 30,000 metric tonnes of cotton by next year.
“We are confident that this is achievable through teamwork, transparency and dedication,” he pointed out.
He announced that in order to avoid “cheating of cotton farmers” and to fix realistic prices for cotton, a national committee comprising a team of cotton experts, the IFC, World Bank, Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture would be formed.
Mr Ayariga further explained that the country would be divided into four zones, namely the North Eastern, North Western, North Central and Northern Brong Ahafo and Volta regions.
He said companies would be invited to engage in serious production of cotton in the four zones to help achieve targets in the industry.
He said activities such as land preparation, farmer mobilisation, input supply, and facilities for the evacuation of cotton from the farms to the ginneries would be undertaken by the selected companies.
The minister entreated workers to suspend their strike and work with their management while government resolved the problem.
The workers indicated that they had lost confidence in the management because of the fact that they “supervised operational losses for the past one decade and we do not think they have the capacity to turn around the fortunes of the company”.
They, however, expressed appreciation to the government for the cotton support programme, saying “had it not been for your timely intervention, the company would have been on its knees”.
The workers equally appealed to the government to conduct a forensic audit into the operations of the company over the past 10 years.

THRILLS AT NAFAC (MIRROR, NOV 27, 2010, PAGE 46)

2010-12-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

From Vincent Amenuveve, Tamale.

WHEN the Ezinlibo Abram Kundum Dance Group and the Nkabom Cultural Troupe all from the Western Region took turns to entertain residents of the Tamale Metropolis as part of the ongoing National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC), it was clear that the region had a lot to offer, besides crude oil and other natural resources.
Both groups expertly performed such traditional dances as the Sekosim, asomdwee dance drama and the Ezinlibo Abram Kundum dance among others thrilling patrons who had gathered at the Jubilee Park to witness the Regional Day activity of the NAFAC.
The region was paired with the Greater Accra Region (GAR) to show case their respective rich cultural and tourism potentials. Five cultural and dance groups each from the two regions performed at the function.
The Sekosim dance is a special choreographed dance for important occasions. It is a dance piece which was choreographed out of the three dances from the Western Region namely Sewurada from Shama, Kotodwe from Wasa Amenfi and Simpoa Allewuley in the Jomoro district.
The Asomdwe dance means peace in Fante and it is a dance drama which tells a story of two ethnic groups who were fighting over land for supremacy and threatened each other with war dance movements. They were later advised by another ethnic group to live in peace and harmony.
The Ezinlibo Abram Kundum dance originated from a small town in Ahanta called Aboadze. History has it that during the immigration of the Nzemas, the Nvavile clan came to settle at Aboadze in Ahanta and a man called Beluhue Ackah from Nvavile clan brought the dance to Benyin and it has since become the annual dance of the Nzemas. It is performed by both males and females, young and old.
The dance has become a festival dance to thank the gods for the fruits of the earth. Its significance is that it exposes bad and good deeds in the community and teaches the youth to put up good behaviours. The Ezinlibo Abram Kundum dance group was formed many years ago under the leadership of Mr. John Kwaw.
The Nkabom Cultural Troupe was formed out of the Regional Dance Association in the year 2000 under the leadership of Mr. Richard Teiko. The troupe has 25 members.
The Western region is made up of five major ethnic groups. They are Nzema, Aowin, Sefwi, Ahanta and Wassa. According to oral records, the people of the region migrated to their present location from the bank of the River Nile. They migrated partly because of the frequent attacks from the Arabs and partly in search of fertile land.
The people exhibit a high degree of cultural homogeneity, especially in the areas of lineage organisation, inheritance and succession, marriage and religion.
Traditional festivals are celebrated from January to December. The five major ethnic groups celebrate festivals which are unique from each other. Nzema and Ahanta people celebrate the Kundum festival while other ethnic groups celebrate Edie Afehye (Wasa Akropong) Odwira Afahye (Benso) Nkronu(Shama Supomu Dunkwa) Afehye (Bekwai) and Elluelie (Enchi and Dadieso).
The region is bordered by Cote D’Ivoire on the West, Central region on the East, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo in the North and 192 kilometers of Gulf of Guinea coast line in the South. It has a total land area of 23,921 kilometers which is about 10 per cent of Ghana’s total land area.
The Mass Choir and the Ledzokuku Cultural troupe from Accra performed various songs and traditional dances, respectively to the admiration of patrons.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashitey and the Deputy Western Regional Minister, Madam Betty Bosumtwe Sam outlined the various potentials of the two regions.
They however stressed the need for traditional authorities and those in the arts and culture industry to help safeguard the country’s rich cultural heritage inspite of the influx of foreign culture.

NR COMES TOPS AT NAFAC (SPREAD, NOV 29, 2010)

2010-12-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

THE Northern Region was at the weekend adjudged the overall best at an awards ceremony held at the Jubilee Park in Tamale to mark the end of this year’s National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC).
The second position went to the Central Region, with the Ashanti Region placing third.
All the 10 regions participated in the festival which was characterised by the display of diverse rich cultural and traditional performances.
The deserving regions were all presented with trophies.
Other awards included best highlife dancer, which went to the Central Region, with the Eastern and Northern regions placing second and third respectively.
In the traditional beauty pageant category, dubbed “Miss NAFAC 2010”, Anita Adjetey, the Head of Ceramic Unit of the Centre for National Culture (CNC) in Accra, was crowned Miss NAFAC 2010.
Western Region was adjudged the best scientific discovery region. The best visual arts product awards went to the Ashanti Region, with Central and Eastern regions placing second and third respectively.
Dr Hajia Salamatu Ibrahim Taimako from the Northern Region was honoured for her immense contribution to the growth of herbal medicine in Ghana.
The Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine placed second, while the Eastern Region took the third position.
In the debate competition, the Saint Charles Senior High School was adjudged the best while the best team in a gala competition went to Gbewaa, followed by Tampe-Kukuo with Baby Jet taking the third position.
Former ministers, chairmen and directors of the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture (MCC), National Commission on Culture (NCC) and the Centre for National Culture (CNC) were honoured.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbenba, was also honoured for his role in making this year’s hosting of the NAFAC in the region a success.
Speakers and patrons at the function described this year’s NAFAC as a huge success although they equally complained of poor publicity about the event. The attendance for the eight-day event was described as encouraging.
The Minister of Chieftaincy and Culture, Mr Alexander Asum-Ahensah, observed that “for the past eight days, Tamale has successfully hosted NAFAC”.
He, therefore, commended the chiefs and residents of the town for the warm reception accorded visitors to the NAFAC, saying, “we have enjoyed every bit of our stay here in Tamale”.
He announced that the Brong Ahafo Region would host the 2012 NAFAC.
Mr Magbenba expressed excitement at the success hosting of NAFAC by the Northern Region.
“We in the region are proud to be hosts to an elaborate display of our rich cultural heritage; hosting of this event has put us on the tourism map,” he said.
A member of the Council of State, Kpan-Naa Mohammed Bawa, observed that the event brought to the fore the need for unity and understanding.
He expressed the hope that the success of the event, particularly in terms of the good attendance, would ultimately enhance the image of the region.
The former Dean of Directors of the CNC, Mr William Addo, on behalf of the award winners, said, “we are indeed grateful for the honour done us; but I must say that standards set by the Northern Region are very high and so the Brong Ahafo Region cannot afford but to meet such standards or do better”.

SANCTION NON-PERFORMING MPS (PAGE 13, NOV 29, 2010)

2010-12-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

PARTICIPANTS in a forum to give voice to the voiceless in Ghana’s Constitution Review Process have stressed the need for mechanisms to be put in place to sanction non-performing parliamentarians.
They noted that over the years some members of parliament engaged in absenteeism, hence they did not contribute adequately to debates on the floor of parliament yet they received their salaries and ex gratia awards.
They equally pointed out the need for the MPS to be given a maximum of three terms after which they must resign as MPs.
Such a measure they noted would ensure that they did not become ineffective and complacent.
The forum discussed the executive, legislature, judiciary, decentralisation and local government, chieftaincy, the direct principles of state policy and national elections.
The forum was aimed at, among other objectives, providing a platform for the grassroots, the vulnerable and marginalised sections of the society to share their views on key aspects of the constitution.
It was organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in collaboration with the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF).
Other participants pointed out the need for a review of the constitution to extend the tenure of office of the President from four to six or seven years.
On women representation at the assembly level, they noted that there was the need for more than 50 per cent of the women to be present at the assemblies to ensure that they form an integral part of the decision making process.
A Policy Analyst at the IEA, Dr Michael Ofori-Mensah, stated that “17 years into the operation of the current constitution, serious shortcomings have been identified”.
According to him, for instance, the superimposition of a partisan central government structure on a non-partisan local government system, within the political space in Ghana gave cause for concern and hence a review.
He explained that democracy could be strengthened, if the shortcomings experienced over the last 17 years were addressed by taking into consideration the concerns of the vulnerable and marginalised groups.
Dr Ofori-Mensah intimated that the IEA was currently undertaking research and advocacy on certain provisions of the constitution that in its view required critical examination.
“In our view, the best way to address the concerns of the marginalised groups is to create the opportunity for gender advocates and representatives of vulnerable groups to speak for themselves” he stated.
A Member of the Council of State, Kpan Naa Muhammed Baba Bawa urged the participants to discuss the issues dispassionately devoid of politics.

MAAKE NDC FORMIDABLE — AKACHAWON (PAGE 12, NOV 27, 2010)

2010-12-02T06:49:00.001-08:00

A member of the communication team of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Tamale, Mr Stephen Akachawon, has entreated the rank and file of the party to unite to make the NDC formidable in the years ahead.
He equally advised members of the party to educate Ghanaians on the achievements of the NDC government after barely two years in office and why the party’s mandate must be renewed in the year 2012.
Mr Akachawon stated this during an interaction with the Daily Graphic in Tamale.
“The internal rivalry within the party ,if care is not taken will dent our image and reputation as a political party .We collectively struggled ,used every resources at our disposal to win the election hence ,it is premature for us to be pinpointing who is a saint and who is a devil” he cautioned.
He intimated that God entrusted the leadership of the county into the hands of Prof. John Evans Atta Mills and that the same God would guide and direct him to effectively handle the affairs of the country.
According to Mr. Akachawon, Prof. Mills had distinguished himself as a real man for the people and had achieved a lot that needed to be lauded.

NORTHERN, BA CELEBRATE DAY AT NAFAC (PAGE 29, NOV 25, 2010)

2010-11-25T04:12:00.000-08:00

RESIDENTS of Tamale metropolis have been treated to cultural performances by various cultural troupes from the Northern and Brong Ahafo regions at the ongoing National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC) at the Jubilee Park in the metropolis.
Seventeen cultural troupes from the Northern Region and three groups from the Brong Ahafo Region performed.
The programme was interspersed with poetry recitals. The one that drew admiration and cheers from residents was the poem on the tourism potentials of the Brong Ahafo Region by Akosua Kakyere Boakyewaa.
The various ethnic groups in the Northern Region, mainly Dagombas, Gonjas, Mamprusis, and Nanumbas performed to the satisfaction of the residents.
The groups include; the Nchile Tosiwa from Gambaga, the Takai from the Centre for National Culture (CNC) in Tamale and the Tanokrom Agoromma and Philamonic Choir from the BAR.
The event was co-chaired by Nana Owusu Akyeaw Bripong II, the Omanhene of Atebubu traditional area and the Mamprugu King, Na Bohagu Mahami Abdulai.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbenba, used the occasion to call on the arts and film industry to ensure that the nation’s cultural identity was not undermined by foreign culture.
“We need to strengthen our national identity as a way of preserving our cultural heritage, particularly at a time when we have an information super highway” he pointed out.
He outlined the region’s tourism potential but expressed regret that most of the tourist sites were inaccessible.
The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye Marfo, announced plans by the government to provide funds through the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture to complete the region’s theatre project that had been abandoned for decades.
He said the region abounded in such potentials as the Tano Sacred Fish, the Buoyem Bat sanctuary and caves, the Bui and Digya National Parks.
The minister noted that the region had gold deposits and that plans were far advanced to undertake mining activities in the Tano North District.
“The region has a lot of potentials in agriculture and animal husbandry and provides 30 per cent of the country’s food requirements” he stated.
According to him, the region had a total land mass of 39,557.08 square kilometres.
Mr Marfo explained that the region was carved out of the Ashanti Region on April 4, 1959.
The week-long NAFAC has 10 participatory regions with each of them given the opportunity to display their cultural heritage and mount exhibitions.

FOOD SECUIRITY, MAJOR PROBLEM IN NORTHERN REGION (PAGE 35, NOV 17, 2010)

2010-11-18T06:47:00.000-08:00

POOR co-ordination among key stakeholders in food security programmes has been identified as a major challenge in dealing with the problems in the Northern Region.
As a result of the situation, there is duplication of functions among the key partners, in spite of the huge investments made over the years to solve food insecurity in the region.
Other factors that militate against achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eradicating extreme hunger and poverty include lack of integration and collaboration and the use of different development approaches towards achieving that goal.
Figures show that the Northern Region occupies about 40 per cent of the agricultural lands of Ghana, comprising sub-humid to semi-arid guinea and Sudan Savannah, with great potential for an agricultural revolution in the country.
The region is also considered in many respects as being the bread basket of the country, with about 70 per cent of its labour force engaged in agriculture, producing mainly food crops such as maize, rice, sorghum, millet, cassava, groundnuts, cowpea, yams and soya beans.
In spite of this huge potential, agriculture productivity and growth and in particular, the goal of ensuring food security continue to be a mirage.
Admittedly, although some successes have been chalked up over the years, much more needs to be done, considering the vast potential that exists in the region and the huge investments made in eradicating hunger in the area.
The absence of an effective platform and leadership to facilitate co-ordination and collaboration is another challenge to achieving the goals of food security in the region.
The non-adherence to land planning and development regulations is also a factor hindering efforts at achieving food security in the region.
At a recent workshop in Tamale on promoting food security through participation and collaboration, the 50 participants, drawn from the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, the Northern Regional Co-ordinating Council, the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, the Lands Commission, Care International, World Vision and the Forestry Department, stressed the need for effective collaboration among key partners in food security.
The workshop brought together the different actors in agriculture in the region under the leadership of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, with funding from the Urban Agriculture Network (URBANET).
It was aimed at engendering discussions to chart the way forward in dealing with food security so that interventions would be strategic and timely.
It was also expected to establish a platform where there would be greater comparability of programmes and interventions from one place to another, increased vigour, greater transparency and increased relevance of agricultural programmes to the regional and national strategic decision making and actions.
The Programme Co-ordinator of URBANET, Mr Rashid Zakaria, stressed the need for dialoguing with the right and appropriate stakeholders to ensure commitment and resource sharing in urban agriculture to impact positively on food security in the region.
The Deputy Northern Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr Stephen Yakubu, said many well designed programmes were still being carried out in parallel interventions in many communities, all aimed at the overall objective of trying to help improve food security and sustainable livelihoods in northern Ghana.
He said the complexity of food security could be simplified into three distinct areas — food availability, accessibility and utilisation.
Indeed, one area of concern to some of the participants at the workshop was the establishment of food security networks (FSNs) as a strategy to boost food security in the region.
It is worthy of note that the government has developed a policy to guide agricultural development in Ghana called the Food and Agricultural Sector Development Policy (FASDEP), whose key objectives are to increase the food needs of Ghanaians for local consumption, local industry and export.
It also aims at creating wealth for farmers, most of whom are small-scale operators.
The strategies for its implementation include enhancing opportunities in the private sector to act as conduits for increased reach from government, especially small-scale operators in the food, livestock and fisheries sectors.
One major issue identified under FASDEP is the low incomes earned by farmers, mostly food crop farmers, and fishermen. In the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) 5, food crop farmers were identified among the lowest income earners in the country, although they form more than 50 per cent of the population.
Furthermore, the GLSS 5 report also indicated that food crop farmers constituted 46 per cent of the poor in the country.
It is, therefore, imperative for key stakeholders to ensure that food security networks are developed at the district and regional levels to address food security issues.

AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING TO COMMENCE TRAINING IN TAMALE (PAGE 29, NOV 17, 2010)

2010-11-18T06:45:00.000-08:00

THE WASSPS Aircraft Engineering Limited is to run a training programme on light aircraft in Tamale.
The programme is a first step towards the establishment of an aircraft engineering and manufacturing facility in the metropolis, depending on patronage of the training programmes.
The Managing Director of the company, Mr Jonathan Porter, made this known during an interaction with media practitioners at the Tamale Airport.
The interaction formed part of a three-day cross-country promotional flight conducted by the company, using its CH701 ultra light aircraft manufactured in Ghana.
Mr Porter said the metropolis had a lot of potential in the usage of light aircraft and expressed the hope that in the near future, increase in patronage of its training programmes would encourage his outfit to locate a manufacturing industry for light aircraft in the sprawling city.
“I agree that some things need to move up here but the government needs to put in place the requisite facilities such as good roads, uninterrupted power supply, and ultramodern telecommunication facilities, including a high speed data mobile gadgets,” he pointed out.
He described the Tamale Airport as a fantastic one and expressed the hope that the capital could be moved from Accra to Tamale to facilitate the rapid development of the area and to encourage investors to fully tap the potential of the area.
He noted that one of the biggest challenges facing the area was lack of exposure to the benefits of the aviation industry, saying “parents are not encouraging their children to go into the aviation industry and I bet you, there are lots of prospects in that sector”.
The MD equally encouraged residents of the metropolis to use light aircraft since it had benefits such as using lesser hours to travel from Tamale to Accra.
He expressed optimism that some residents in the metropolis could purchase a light aircraft.
He said, for instance that one aircraft sold between $65,000 and $250,000, while it cost $100 an hour to rent an aircraft.
He said purchasing one aircraft manufactured by the company was equivalent to buying a new four-wheel vehicle.
The Aircraft Engineering Manager, Ms Patricia Nyekodzi, said the aircraft could be used for many activities, including surveillance, video coverage, mass spraying exercises and border patrols.
She encouraged parents to allow their children to be trained to pilot the light aircraft, saying it cost between $6000 and $9000 to be trained to pilot the aircraft.
Ms Nyekodzi was happy about the warm reception accorded her by residents of the metropolis, saying “Tamale is the best environment; the hospitality is so superb. In fact, I am so impressed and I would wish to spend more time here”.
The manager, who is currently the first female Ghanaian to hold the Ghana National Pilot Licence, piloted the CH701 aircraft throughout the 10 regions of the country with stopovers in Takoradi in the Western Region, Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region, Wa in the Upper East Region, Tamale in the Northern Region and Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.

FULANI HERDSMAN TO DIE (PAGE 3, NOV 11, 2010)

2010-11-13T01:34:00.000-08:00

A Cattle herdsman who killed a colleague he suspected of stealing his ‘juju’ and GH¢10 was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging for murder by the High Court in Tamale.
A seven-member jury returned a unanimous veerdict of guilt of murder against Yakubu Bello, 24, for murdering his colleague, Mahamadu Fulani, at Fulanipe, a village near Salaga in the East Gonja District in the Northern Region.
The facts of the case, as presented by a Senior State Attorney, Mr Salia Abdul-Quddus, were that Bello and the deceased were both herdsmen employed by a cattle owner at Fulanipe.
Mr Abdul-Quddus had told the court, presided over by Mr Justice Laurent Mensah, that Bello and the deceased lived 300 metres away from where the kraal was located.
About 5:30 a.m. on March 2, 2004, the cattle owner visited the kraal to see how his employees were faring, but to his utter shock and surprise, he found Fulani dead and lying in a pool of blood.
According to the prosecution, the cattle owner then returned home and informed his sons about the incident and later returned to the kraal with his sons and because Bello was nowhere to be found, they decided to look for him.
They found Bello hiding in an obscure place of the kraal and he attempted to run away but they managed to arrest him and hand him over to the police.
The prosecution stated that Bello confessed that he had committed the crime and explained he killed his colleague because he had stolen his “juju” and GH¢10.

NORTHERN REGIONAL NDC CHAIRMAN IS DEAD (PAGE 12, NOV 9, 2010)

2010-11-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

THE Northern Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Alhaji Sumani Zakari, is dead.
The late Sumani, died at 1:00a.m. on Monday morning at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra where he was receiving treatment after he fell sick a couple of months ago. He was 75.
The late Chairman, affectionately called “suffer to gain” has since been buried in Tamale according to Islamic tradition. The late Sumani was born and bred in Tamale and comes from the Dakpema Royal Family in the metropolis. He left behind 29 children and four wives.
The late Alhaji Sumani became the Regional Chairman in 2005 and was instrumental in increasing the number of seats in Parliament in the region from 17 to 22 seats. It is also on record that he was efficient in harmonising the interests of all the factions that existed within the party in the region and supported the party tremendously to win the 2008 general election.
Apart from his political career, the late Sumani was a successful contractor, and commercial farmer with a good number of investments in Tamale including the ongoing plush hotel project in the metropolis.
When the Daily Graphic visited his house in Tamale, NDC party bigwigs in the region, including a former Northern Regional Minister, Mr Gilbert Iddi, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabenba,his Deputy, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi,the Metropolitan Chief Executive,Alhaji Haruna Friday, among others, had gathered at the deceased’s house to sympathise with the bereaved family and witness his burial. Family members and residents of the metropolis, including sympathisers of the NDC party had also thronged the house to mourn him. They described his death as shocking and noted that it had created a vacuum inhis family and the party.
The NDC Regional Organiser, Alhaji Abdulai Silimboma, described the late Alhaji Sumani as a strong leader both in his family and the party as a whole.
“His contribution to the Northern Region and the country as a whole cannot be quantified that is why we received the news of his death with shock”Alhaji Silimboma stated.
The NDC Regional Youth Organiser, Mr Adam Mohammed Abio, for his part, expressed regret that his demise was untimely since it happened at a time when the party needed him most.
“We need him to unite the party and to facilitate the implementation of the Better Ghana Agenda in the region” he explained.
According to Mr Abio, when the party was in opposition, the late Sumani solely financed the activities of the party in the region which the rank and file of the NDC could testify to.
The regional youth organiser further observed that the late Chairman of the party contributed immensely towards the NDC’s victory in the 2008 general election.
“I know many party sympathisers are with the NDC because of him and I must assure them that the leadership of the party in the region would not turn its back on them but would ensure that the foot prints of the late Sumani is followed”Mr. Abio stressed.
According to the Regional Treasurer of the party, Mr Tanko Computer, the party’s constitution allows for one of the two vice chairmen to act as regional chairman until a congress of the party.

COTTON COMPANY WORKERS WANT MANAGEMENT OUT (PAGE 51, NOV 8, 2010)

2010-11-12T23:45:00.001-08:00

WORKERS of the distressed Ghana Cotton Company Limited (GCCL) in Tamale, Tumu and Bolgatanga, have called for the dismissal of the current management of the company.
They accused the management of mismanaging the resources of the company, thereby collapsing it.
They, therefore, entreated the government to, as a matter of urgency, salvage the distressed company by appointing a new board of directors and a substantive managing director as part of measures to revamp it.
The workers stated this in a 11-point petition presented to the media in Tamale by Mr Raphael Zuanah, the chairman of the local union.
The workers alleged that the management had “illegally adjusted their respective salaries upward leaving the rest of the workers, thereby distorting the whole salary structure”.
They further stated that the management “procured expired and relabelled insecticides that had resulted in poor production and drained the company’s resources”.
They also claimed the management used borrowed monies meant for the company’s operations to “sponsor top management staff to undertake their executive Masters Programme at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), although most of them were due for retirement”.
“Car loans were given to about 11 management staff members at a time when the company was in financial crisis. They have also converted their leave into huge sums of money when they could not pay staff,” the workers alleged.
The workers were of the view that it was not necessary for the company to increase its management staff from 11 to 22 with huge salaries being paid to them, which could pay the rest of the staff.
A letter written and signed by the acting Managing Director of the company, Mr George Osieku, and copied to the local union chairman, senior staff, manager, corporate affairs and the General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) admitted that the company was in financial crisis.
The letter, dated October 21, 2010, also acknowledged that “salaries have been unpaid for an unprecedented six months and as such the company is heavily indebted to customers for services rendered and supplies made to it”.
According to management, it had secured GH¢1 million from the Ministry of Finance, which had already been disbursed for the payment of the outstanding six months’ salaries.
The management, therefore, advised workers to exercise restraint “as any industrial disharmony throws all efforts at securing funds out of gear and scare potential investors”.
The Daily Graphic also gathered that Chemico Limited, one of the companies that the cotton firm was indebted to, had filed a writ at the Accra High Court to place an injunction on both movable and immovable properties of the firm to compel it to honour its indebtedness.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTRE INAUGURATED (PAGE 18, NOV 5, 2010)

2010-11-06T07:49:00.001-07:00

UNEMPLOYMENT among the youth in the Tamale metropolis is to be addressed with the inauguration of a project to train more than 180 youth annually to acquire various vocational skills in the metropolis.
The project, estimated at GH¢40,000, is the brain child of the Northern Youth for Peace and Community Development (NYPCD), a non-governmental organisation.
As part of the initiative, the NYPCD will link the trainees to credit unions, rural banks and the Ministry of Trade and Industry to enable them to have access to credit facilities to establish their own businesses and to help market their produce.
For a start, 50 trainees have been registered to undergo two-year training in fashion and design, hairdressing, batik tie-dye making, shoe production and smock weaving. It is envisaged that the completion of the project would help curb the high rural-urban migration among the youth.
A facility housing the various units like workshop, hairdressing unit, leather works unit, stores, and equipment such as sewing machines, designing equipment, among others, have been acquired to kick-start the training.
The Director of the NYPCD, Mr Yussif Hamidu, told the Daily Graphic that facilities would be expanded in the years ahead to provide accommodation facilities to enable trainees to be housed at the NYPCD training centre.
“At the moment we have six instructors and I wish to appeal to donor partners, particularly the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), to assist us to pay these instructors” Mr Hamidu stated.
The director commended all those who in diverse ways supported the project, and made particular mention of Dr Valerie Sawyerr, the Deputy Chief of Staff, for her tremendous role in supporting the initiative.

KUKUO MARKET PROJECT STALLED (PAGE 18, NOV 5, 2010)

2010-11-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

WORK on the Kukuo Market complex in Tamale, also known as the Golden Jubilee Market, has stalled. The situation has been attributed to lack of funds.
The GH¢4.595 million project was awarded on contract in December 2008 as part of the country’s Golden Jubilee celebrations and was expected to be completed in March this year.
A visit to the project site by the Daily Graphic showed no sign of construction work going on as workers of the China State Hualong Construction Company that is executing the project were not available for comments. So far the project is at the foundation level and there was no sign of construction equipment at the site. The Architectural Engineering Services Limited (AESL) is supervising the project.
The market is strategically located at Kukuo that is arguably one of the sprawling suburbs of the metropolis. It is envisaged that the completion of the project will help ease congestion at the Aboabu and Tamale Central markets.
When completed, the project would have a public parking lot, 402 shops, butchers’ shop, sanitary facilities, access roads, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centre, a bank, security lights, revenue collection points, waste disposal sites and fire service facilities.
The Northern Regional Consultant of the AESL, Mr Anthony Baissana, told the Daily Graphic that the shops had been grouped into type A, B and C with offices attached.
According to him, the project would have three storey buildings that would house all the 402 shops.
Meanwhile residents of Kukuo have expressed disappointment at the delay in the execution of the project. They observed that most of them wanted to take advantage of the opportunity offered them and go into business.
They pointed out that the area was expanding rapidly in terms of population and hoped the requisite funding would be sourced to ensure the completion of the project.
The Public Affairs Officer of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA), Mr Issah Musah, also stated that the Kukuo Market project was strategic as it would ultimately increase commercial activities in the metropolis.

SOLAR POWER SYSTEM INAUGURATED AT BENKROM (BACK PAGE NOV 5, 2010)

2010-11-06T07:38:00.001-07:00

A Solar power system, capable of supplying 4.2 kilowatt of power to small and medium-scale industries, has been inaugurated at Benkrom in the Kintampo North District of the Brong Ahafo Region.
The facility, which cost GH¢55,000 was jointly financed by the Pure Company Limited, an agro-processing factory at Benkrom and the Energy Commission (EC) as part of the first phase of a pilot project to provide a total of 25 kilowatt of power to institutions and residential facilities.
Inaugurating the facility, a board member of the Energy Commission, Dr Francis Dakura, said the commission was determined to increase allocation from its Energy Fund to upscale the solar project.
He further explained that by early next year, an advertisement on the project would be placed in the newspapers for interested individuals and corporate bodies to submit proposals for consideration.
According to Dr Dakura, Ghana was endowed with renewable energy resources such as solar wind, biomass, among others, which could be harnessed for electricity generation.
‘The rate of exploitation of these resources except biomass, however, has not seen any significant progress despite several years of support from government and development partners” he pointed out.
The board member said that the EC was taking proactive measures under Act, 541 of 1997 to ensure the accelerated development and utilisation of the country’s renewable energy resources including solar.
He stated that the commission had, therefore, completed assessment of renewable energy resources of the country, and observed that preliminary results indicated that solar and wind energy resources abound in the country saying, “the coastal zone of the country had favourable wind resources estimated at 300 megawatts which could be tapped for commercial production of electricity”.
The board member intimated that the major factor that had limited the development of renewable energy was the absence of requisite legislative framework to propel its adoption and application.
“In view of this, the Commission in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy has developed the Renewable Energy Bill, which is receiving Cabinet’s approval after which it will be tabled before Parliament for passage into Renewable Energy Law”, he added
The Executive Director of Pure Company, Mr John Addaquaye said the company embraced the pilot solar project as a strategy to reduce the cost of power consumed.
He announced that the company intended to look at other alternative energy solutions such as using shea waste to generate heat and electricity, adding that his outfit would consult the Ghana Energy Commission.
The Executive Secretary of the EC, Mr Ofosu Ahenkorah, encouraged Ghanaians to consider using solar energy since only 67 percent of rural communities had access to electricity with the remaining 33 percent of them without the facility.
The Municipal Chief Executive for Kintampo North, Mr Philip Ankomah, expressed optimism that the project would help reduce unemployment among the youth in the area.

REFUGEES BACK FROM TOGO (PAGE 19, NOV 2, 2010)

2010-11-06T03:18:00.001-07:00

Ghanaian refugees who fled the ethnic conflict in Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo for shelter in neighbouring Togo have all returned home.
The Minister of the Interior, Mr Martin Amidu, stated this when he led a team from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on a tour of Kambatiak and Gbankoni, the two communities most affected by the exodus.
“Intelligence reports indicate that the people have returned home and are cohabiting peacefully,” he told the media during the tour.
He, however, disputed the figure of 6,000 quoted by earlier reports, arguing that the population of the two communities put together was not up to that figure.
Also in the interior minister’s entourage were the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbenba, and the National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Kofi Portuphy.
The visit to the two communities formed part of his maiden two-day tour of the region to acquaint himself with the security challenges of the area, as well as the flood situation at Buipe in the Central Gonja District.
“Sometime in May, this year, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report indicated that there were 3,500 Ghanaian refugees in Togo and later the figure was increased to 3,600 and at the Geneva conference, it was said that there were 6,000 Ghanaian refugees in Togo. Why this?” he asked.
The minister entreated residents of the two communities to bury their differences to forestall such unfortunate situations.
“Let us comport ourselves because the name of Ghana is being dragged in the mud,” Mr Amidu advised the communities.
Mr Magbenba appealed to the people to avoid staying for long periods in Togo in order not to tarnish Ghana's reputation as a peaceful country.
The chief of Kambatiak, Marison Konlabonk, said it was true that there was a conflict in the area and some residents fled to Togo but stressed that almost all of them had returned home.

7 CLASSROOM PROJECTS HANDED OVER TO SCHOOLS ...In the Northern Region (PAGE 11, NOV 1, 2010)

2010-11-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

SEVEN out of the 20 six-unit classroom projects which are meant to augment classroom facilities in selected senior high schools in the northern region have been completed and handed over to the beneficiary schools.
The initiative is expected to ease pressure on the limited classroom facilities in the beneficiary schools, particularly, as the schools have admitted fresh students for the 2010/11 academic year.
The projects are located at the Walewale Senior High School, Gambaga Senior High and Girls Schools, Zabzugu Senior High, Salaga Senior High and Islamic and Business Senior High Schools in Tamale. The projects were awarded on contract in June this year. The Architectural Engineering Services Limited (AESL) supervised the projects.
Speaking at a ceremony to hand over the GH¢517,000 projects to the Islamic and Business Senior High Schools in Tamale, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbenba said the completion of the projects was a clear manifestation of the government’s resolve to address the inadequate classroom facilities in schools.
According to him, seven more of such projects would be completed in a week’s time and urged the beneficiary schools to take good care of the facilities.
“We are solving the problems gradually and I think by the close of November we would complete all the projects; for me we are just fulfilling our campaign promises,” he said.
The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yeleh Chireh said the government was on course with the provision of the needed facilities to improve on quality education in the country.
He said the government was equally finding ways of motivating teachers to give of their best.
The Manager of Nana Nyarko Enterprise, Mr Albert Nyarko, said although the work encountered a few challenges at the Business Senior High School project site, it did not affect the quality of work.

GOVT APOLOGISES FOR NAKPANDURI EXCESSES...In hunt for hardened criminal (PAGE 3, NOV 1, 20100

2010-11-06T02:25:00.000-07:00

THE Government has apologised to residents of Nakpanduri in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District in the Northern Region for any excesses that might have occurred during the recent police operation to arrest Johnson Soloma Kombian, a notorious jail-breaker.
The Minister of the Interior, Mr Martin Amidu, who conveyed the apology on behalf of the government, however, pointed out that “no government will allow such a hardened criminal to live among innocent citizens and be terrorising them” and gave the assurance that the police would use all legal means to apprehend Kombian, who is alleged to have recently killed two cops and injured one.
Mr Amidu conveyed the apology when he called on the Mamprugu chief, Nayiri Na Bohagu Mahami Abdulai, at his palace over the weekend as part of his maiden two-day tour of the region to assess the security and flood situation in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo and Central Gonja districts respectively.
He was accompanied on the tour by Mr Moses Magbenba, the Regional Minister, Mr Kofi Portuphy, National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), and some representatives of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Mr Amidu thanked the Nayiri for the relative peace in the area and equally expressed concern about negative media reportage that suggested that there were thousands of Ghanaian refugees in neighbouring Togo.
Nayiri Abdulai observed that those who moved from Kambatiak and Gbankoni to Togo were mainly farmers.
He entreated chiefs in the two conflicting communities to bury their differences in order not to tarnish the image of the country.
The Nayiri further cautioned security agencies against discrimination in the performance of their duties, saying, “you must find a way of making friends with the people so that they can easily volunteer information to you”.
Meanwhile, irate residents of Nakpanduri were on the streets at the weekend to protest against what they described as “brutalities” meted out to them by the police when they conducted an operation to arrest Johnson Soloma Kombian.
The residents, clad in red attire and wearing red bands, also accused the police of looting their properties and beating up innocent people in their respective homes and workplaces.
The convoy of vehicles carrying the Minister of the Interior, Mr Martin Amidu, Mr Moses Magbenba, the Regional Minister, and other dignitaries, who visited the area to acquaint themselves with the security challenges of the area and to sympathise with the victims, had to move through the crowd at a snail's pace as residents virtually took over the streets.
The protest followed last Wednesday’s police exercise to arrest Kombian, whom the police described as a notorious jail-breaker and a hardened criminal.
As a result, about 20 houses were burnt down, including kiosks and stores, while some food stuffs were also destroyed by the fire. A number of persons also sustained injuries in the process.
Mr Amidu expressed the government’s preparedness to investigate the matter and resolve all issues.
“We are very sorry for the excesses by the police but I can assure you that we would lay this matter to rest,” the Minister added.

GNANI CAMP 'WITCHES' PLEAD (PAGE 11, OCT 30, 2010)

2010-11-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

People accused of witchcraft at the Gnani Camp in the Yendi Municipality of the Northern Region have made a passionate appeal to human rights activists and civil society organisations to help them reunite with their families.
They said although they would love to go home to be reintegrated with their respective communities and families, they were afraid to do so due to the attitude of their community members.
The alleged witches made the appeal when the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ActionAid International, Madam Joana Kerr, visited the camp as part of her one-day maiden working visit to the region.
She was accompanied on the visit by the Country Director of ActionAid Ghana, Madam Adwoa Kluvitse.
The camp has a total population of 949 people made up of 269 women, 51 men and 629 children. Unlike other camps in the region, the Gnani Camp has both males and females who have been accused of witchcraft.
The alleged witches, some of whom had stayed in the camp for 15 years and more, complained about the circumstances that made the people banish them from their respective communities.
They attributed the accusations levelled against them by some community members to “envy and jealousy” and described them as “baseless and wrong”, stressing that it should be condemned.
“For me it was just my rival who accused me of witchcraft and so I was brought here” one of the women stated.
Others claimed because of their hard work they were accused of using people for ritual purposes, particularly when they fell sick or died.
Some of the alleged witches also claimed they were banished from their communities because some “spiritualists” claimed they were possessed with witchcraft, when they were taken to their shrines.
The alleged witches thanked ActionAid for their immense support and hoped other non-governmental organisations would emulate the gesture.
Madam Kerr said there was the need to ensure that children at the camp had access to quality education.
She said she was encouraged by the “strength of the women in spite of their predicaments.
The CEO said such accusations were “unfounded purely because they have not been verified by a competent court of jurisdiction”.
She called for urgent steps to help stop those “inhuman treatment of people because it is unfair and unjustified”.
Madam Kerr assured the alleged witches that ActionAid would do all it could to help change the negative perception about the society towards them, adding, “We are in solidarity with you and we are standing behind you in your struggle to safeguard your rights”.

OUTRAGED WOMAN SMASHES CAR WINDSCREEN (MIRROR, PAGE 20, OCT 30, 2010)

2010-10-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

From Vincent Amenuveve, Tamale

WHEN a taxi driver at Choggu Manayilli, a suburb of Tamale, quarrelled with his girlfriend for allegedly bringing home another man, little did he know that his taxi cab would pay dearly for that confrontation as the girlfriend smashed the windscreen of the vehicle.
For her lawlessness, the Tamale District Court, presided over by a Magistrate, Gabriel Mate-Teye, sentenced Jezawu Mohammed, a trader at Gurugu in Tamale, to a fine of GH¢600 or in default serve six months imprisonment in hard labour.
The convict, however, pleaded guilty to the charge of causing unlawful damage.
According to the prosecution, at about 9:00 p.m. on March 21, 2010, Shaibu Mohammed, the taxi driver visited Jezawu at her house but did not meet her.
After waiting for her for sometime, Jezawu arrived home with another man.
The prosecution stated that the situation brought about a quarrel between Mohammed and Jezawu after the man at the centre of the controversy left.
Mohammed’s taxi developed a mechanical fault after the quarrel and so he could not drive the vehicle back home.
The prosecution explained that Mohammed, therefore, parked the vehicle behind the house of the convict.
When Mohammed left, the convict who was still annoyed because she was rebuked by Mohammed vented that anger on his taxi cab and smashed both the front and rear windscreens of the vehicle with a stone, damaging them in the process.
The prosecution said the convict also broke the inner glasses in all the doors of the vehicle.
The prosecution continued that when Mohammed returned the following day with his mechanic to repair the fault on the vehicle, the convict, still angered by the boyfriend’s action, went to them and started boasting that she had damaged the vehicle.
The matter was reported to the police and the convict was arrested and after investigations, she was charged with the offence.

CHOP BAR ATTENDANT JAILED FOR DUMPING BABY (MIRROR, PAGE 20, OCT 30, 2010)

2010-10-29T10:44:00.001-07:00

From Vincent Amenuveve, Tamale

A chop bar attendant has been sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment by the Tamale District Court for abandoning her day-old baby on a refuse dump.
Rahi Iddrisu, who lives at Salamba, a suburb of Tamale, already has two children, aged two and three.
She pleaded guilty to the charge of child abandonment at the court, presided over by Mr Gabriel Mate-Teye.
The facts of the case, as presented by the prosecution, were that about 4 a.m. on July 25, 2010, Mr Alhassan Salifu Kalala of the Bilchinsi Task Force was informed by some of the community members about the abandonment of an infant on a rubbish dump near the Community Health Nursing Training School in Tamale.
Mr Kalala rushed to the scene and took the baby to the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), where it was admitted for examination and treatment.
According to the prosecution, the community members later identified the convict as the culprit and, upon interrogation, she admitted committing the offence.
On July 27, 2010, the convict was handed over to the police for investigation, during which, in her caution statement, she admitted the offence and led the police to where she had dumped the baby.
The prosecution further explained that on August 4, 2010, one Adam Inusah, an uncle of the convict, presented a copy of an application requesting custody of the baby.
After investigations, the convict was charged with the offence of child abandonment.
Meanwhile, the baby is currently in the custody of the Department of Social Welfare in Tamale.

NR TOURISM SECTOR GROWING STEADILY (PAGE 27, OCT 30, 2010)

2010-10-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

From Vincent
Amenuveve, Tamale.

THE tourism sector in the Northern Region generated a total of GH¢413,232 between 2002 and last year.
Additionally, a total of GH¢106,916 tourists arrived in the region within the same period.
The Regional Chief Officer of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), Mr Alexander Nketia, who made this known to The Mirror in Tamale, said the sector had grown significantly over the past eight years particularly in the areas of revenue and tourist arrivals to the region.
According to him, the region bagged GH¢142,218 with 17,620 tourist arrivals last year alone.
The major tourist attractions are located at Larabanga, Mognori, Daboya, Mole National Park and Tizaa among others.
He attributed the growth to frantic efforts over the years by the GTB to protect and discover more tourist attractions in the region.
Touching on the World Tourism Day celebrations, the officer intimated that the developing world’s share of global or international tourism had grown from 34 per cent in the year 2000 to 40 per cent at the moment.
That of Ghana, Mr Nketia said, had grown from 428,533 visitors with corresponding receipts of $836 million in 2005 to over 850,000 visitors with receipts of over $1.5 billion last year.
“If these figures are anything to go by then the need to protect and conserve the biodiversity upon which our tourism attractions are dependent” the officer pointed out.
He noted that there was the need to educate and inform communities particularly the youth about the dangers of destroying biodiversity.
“The GTB therefore sees it as a unique opportunity to raise public awareness particularly among the youth of the importance of biodiversity to tourism development,” he stressed.
Mr Nketia urged communities to avoid such activities as poaching, bush burning, lumbering, environmental pollution, improper disposal of waste and use of weedicides.
A lecturer at the Department of Ecotourism and Environment, Mr Raymond Adongo, said tourism depended so much on biodiversity, saying one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism was the nature based one.
He advocated the formation of tourism clubs in schools, development of tourism infrastructure as well as proper disposal of wastes.

TOURISM SECTOR GROWS STEADILY IN NORTHERN REGION (PAGE 42, OCT 28, 2010)

2010-10-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

THE tourism sector in the Northern Region has been growing steadily for the past eight years in the areas of revenue and tourist arrivals to the region.
According to the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), the region bagged GH¢142,218 from 17,620 tourist arrivals in 2001 as against GH¢9,401 from 7,295 visitors recorded in 2002.
In 2008, the region recorded 20,711 tourist arrivals and obtained GH¢62,385 as revenue. In 2007, GH¢51,889 was received in the sector with 16,545 visitors to tourist sites. The major tourist attractions are located at Larabanga, Mognori, Daboya, Mole National Park and Tizaa, among others.
The Regional Chief Officer of the GTB, Mr Alexander Nketia, made this known to the Daily Graphic in Tamale during a symposium to mark the World Tourism Day.
He attributed the growth to frantic efforts to protect and discover more tourist attractions in the region. The day was held on the theme: “Tourism and biodiversity.”
According to Mr Nketia, the developing world’s share of global or international tourism had grown from 34 per cent in 2000 to 40 per cent currently.
Mr Nketia said Ghana had grown from 428,533 visitors in 2005 with corresponding receipts of $836 million to over 850,000 visitors in 2009 with receipts of over $1.5 billion.
“If these figures are anything to go by, then there is the need to protect and conserve the biodiversity on which our tourism attractions are dependent,” he stated.
Mr Nketia stressed the need to educate and inform communities, particularly the youth, about the dangers of destroying biodiversity.
“The GTB, therefore, sees it as a unique opportunity to raise public awareness, especially among the youth, of the importance of biodiversity to tourism development,” he stressed.
Mr Nketia urged communities to avoid such activities as poaching, bush burning, lumbering, environmental pollution, improper disposal of waste and use of weedicides.
A lecturer at the Department of Ecotourism and Environment at the University for Development Studies, Mr Raymond Adongo, said tourism depended so much on biodiversity, adding that one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism was the nature based one.
He advocated the formation of tourism clubs in schools, the development of tourism infrastructure as well as proper disposal of waste.

POOR ROAD NETWORK IN BUNKPURUGU HAMPERS PROGRESS (PAGE 42, OCT 28, 2010)

2010-10-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

THE poor nature of roads in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District in the Northern Region is a major source of worry to the people.
The situation has worsened with the onset of the rains and time without number, many vehicles get stuck on the roads.
The undulating state of the roads most often result in accidents and sometimes deaths.
The area is predominantly a farming community and the people cultivate crops such as maize, guinea corn, groundnuts, sorghum, and soyabeans. They also rear guinea fowls, cattle and goats for economic gains.
The major tribes in the area are the Mamprusis, Bimobas and Konkombas.
Indeed farmers in the area complain bitterly about their inability to convey foodstuffs from their farms to the marketing centres.
It is common to see most mummy trucks locked up on the roads either because they have broken down or they are unable to ply the roads, especially during the rainy season.
The Chief of Bunkpurugu, Alhaji Abuba Nasumang, minced no words when he lamented about the situation in an interview with the Daily Graphic at his palace.
He stressed the need for the government to provide the only senior high school with boarding facility and hospitals in the area with the needed equipment to enhance the work of the officials.
“The deplorable roads affect our socio-economic lives and the earlier something is done about them the better; we are tired of this situation and we are wondering why it is so,”Alhaji Nasumang stressed.
During a recent visit to the area to inspect development projects, the Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, also acknowledged the deplorable state of roads in the area.
He, however, assured the people that the government was committed to the improvement of the road network in the area.
Mr Asabigi, therefore, entreated the people to avoid bickering and to unite for the accelerated development of the area.
The District Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Abdulai Mumuni for his part, stated that the poor state of roads in the area affected effective policing.
He said whenever there was a robbery incident around the Nankpanduri scarp, it took the police hours to get to the scene of crime by which time the suspects had escaped.
“Even if you get a distress call and you reach the place and you call for reinforcement, most of the time, it is impossible for them to come because of the bad roads; In fact, that is affecting security in the area,” ASP Mumuni stated.
The new District Chief Executive, Mr Philip Laari, pledged to take a critical look at the road sector, saying such challenges are surmountable.

TAMALE RESIDENTS WALK TO PROMOTE ROAD SAFETY (PAGE 29, OCT 27, 2010)

2010-10-26T12:23:00.001-07:00

AS part of efforts to curb road accidents in the Tamale metropolis, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) in the Northern Region has organised a road safety walk in the metropolis.
Dubbed ‘Walk for Health Stay with Cowbell’, the walk was part of the new strategies adopted by the NRSC to sensitise residents to the need to ensure road safety measures.
A cross-section of the public took part in the walk that included keep fit exercises held at the Jubilee Park.
Speaking to the participants, the Regional Manager of the NRSC for the Northern and Upper East regions, Mr Thomas Boakye, stated that the walk would be organised every month.
He said that research had shown that where “enforcement of road traffic regulations failed, motivation must be adopted to encourage motorists to ensure road safety measures”.
He announced that next month had been declared a road safety month, adding that a “cycling month” would also be put in place as a way of educating the public on road traffic regulations.
He further explained that those who wore their crash helmets regularly would be identified and rewarded as a way of motivating residents to adhere to road safety measures.
“Safety consciousness is an individual affair and I must warn that if you mess up yourself and die through your own carelessness on the road, even God himself would not forgive you” the manager cautioned.
An educator at the NRSC in the region, Mr Baba Musah, noted that every road user should be concerned about the lives of other road users including pedestrians in order to reduce accidents to the barest minimum.
Last month 26 people died in a road accident at Zagyuri, near Kamina, when the cargo truck on which they were travelling from Zoggu in the Savelugu-Nanton District to Tamale veered off the road in an attempt to overtake a tipper truck and plunged into a gutter killing the passengers on the bus.

TRULL FOUNDATION SUPPORTS NINE ORGANISATIONS (PAGE 29, OCT 26, 2010)

2010-10-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

THIS year, the northern part of Ghana has witnessed one of its heaviest rains and this has led to the flooding of many communities in the various districts. Lives have been lost, houses collapsed, roads destroyed, farms inundated and communities cut off from each other.
Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region, was not spared its share of the destruction. One person was confirmed dead while several others sustained various degrees of injuries when the buildings they were residing in collapsed on them during the rains.
The daily lives of people living in parts of Gumani, Koblimahagu, Builpela, Kukuo, Wamali and Fuo became a nightmare as they had to move through water and swamp to and from home.
One of the most visible leftovers of the floods was the destruction caused to road networks in the various suburbs of the metropolis.
Some portions of various feeder roads were washed away by the running water, leaving behind large potholes on several portions.
For instance, roads in the Gbewa community, behind the Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO) in Kukuo, were severely damaged dividing some of the roads into halves.
The residents of the area told the Daily Graphic that the nature of the roads was impeding movement, particularly for drivers of automobiles, as they had to manoeuvre their way through the potholes.
“Sometimes, you just have to park your car at a point and try to cross a ditch to the other side,” Mr Abdul Sadiq, a resident, stated.
One thing that the rains have, however, exposed is the failure of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) to tar many roads in the city. Apart from the roads in the main township, the rest are dusty roads that are awarded on contract periodically for reshaping.
This year, for instance, the main road in the Gbewa community was reshaped, but the floods have damaged the road once more, thereby leading to a waste of resources.
Except for the late 1990s and between 2002 and 2008, the metropolis has not undergone any major improvements in its road networks in recent times.
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the TaMA, Mr Issah Musah, said the assembly had noted the deplorable condition of many roads in the city and had drawn up a comprehensive plan to rehabilitate them.
He said the plan, which was drafted in collaboration with the Urban Roads Department, captured all important roads in the city, but noted that the lack of funds was hindering the implementation of the plan.
Notwithstanding the challenge of lack of finance, Mr Musah insisted that there was some hope that the roads in the metropolis would be improved soon.
He noted, for instance, that some of the major roads had been captured in a proposal for special attention under the Ghana Urban Management Project (GUMP), which is to be sponsored by the French Development Agency (AFD).
These projects, he mentioned, included the upgrading of a portion of Tamale’s second ring road, between TAYSEC Junction and the SSNIT Flat Roundabout and access roads within Tishigu and Moshi Zongo.
The PRO also mentioned the rehabilitation of the Aboabo lorry park and the construction of the Gumani storm drain and retention point as two other projects that had been included in the proposal.
He said whiles the assembly waited for approval to undertake these projects, it had taken some temporary measures such as the rehabilitation of the assembly’s grader, which was being used from time to time to undertake minor repair works on the roads.

ARMED ROBBERS SHOOT MILITARY MAN (PAGE 77, OCT 25, 2010)

2010-10-25T04:56:00.000-07:00

A Soldier was reportedly gunned down on Friday when a group of suspected armed robbers attacked a Mercedes Benz saloon car on the Tamale-Buipe highway in the Central Gonja District of the Northern Region.
The deceased, a Warrant Officer (WO) whose name is being withheld for security reasons, was one of the five occupants of the vehicle, with registration number CR 826 W, that was travelling from Kumasi in the Ashanti Region to Tamale when the incident occurred. It was, however, not clear who shot and killed the deceased.
The outgoing Northern Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Angwubutoge Awuni, who confirmed the story to the Daily Graphic in Tamale, said the incident happened at about 3:00 a.m. but the police were yet to establish where the gunshots that killed the soldier came from as the matter was still under investigations.
According to him, the suspects had mounted road blocks in a bid to rob their victims and so when the car approached the crime scene one of the robbers asked the occupants to get down.
He explained that after the robbery, a police officer reportedly appeared on the scene and engaged in a shoot-out with the robbers and they subsequently fled into a nearby bush.
Narrating the incident, the driver of the vehicle, Mr Mahama Nasiru, said upon reaching the scene, one of the robbers opened the driver’s door and asked him (Nasiru) to come out and lie down.
According to him, the robber asked him to bring the money he had on him to which he (Nasiru) refused and so the suspect took his mobile phone and robbed one of the occupants of an amount of GH¢200.
Mr Nasiru explained that the robber asked the soldier also to come out of the vehicle and subsequently the soldier struggled with the robber and managed to snatch a locally manufactured weapon from him (the robber).
The driver said the robber, sensing danger, ran into the bush.
He said a few moments later he heard about three gunshots and when he stood up he found the soldier lying dead.

FOUR DCES SWORN INTO OFFICE (PAGE 13, OCT 23, 2010)

2010-10-25T04:23:00.001-07:00

FOUR new District Chief Executives in the Northern Region have been sworn into office at a ceremony in Tamale.
They are Mr Philip Laari, 60, a former Regional Commander of the Ghana Prisons Service for the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo district, Mr Issah Zakaria, 50, an Educationist of the Yendi Municipality.
The rest are Mr Sulemana Issah, 48, a teacher of the Karaga District and Isaac Dramani, 40, an Accountant for the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District.
They were sworn-in by a Supervising High Court Judge, Justice Lawrene L. Mensah, in consonance with Article 243 of the 1992 constitution and section 20(1) of the Local Government Act 462.
Speaking after the ceremony, the Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbenba, reminded the DCEs that the purpose for establishing the various district assemblies in Ghana was to among other things, ensure the full involvement of the local people in the decision making process.
He explained that the success of that initiative depended on some key values exhibited by the DCEs, namely honesty, commitment, firmness, probity, accountability and responsiveness to development issues, among others.
Mr Magbenba equally drew their attention to key provisions in the Local Government Act that related to their responsibilities.
“Clearly, as DCEs, you are supposed to lead the assembly in its development efforts by using the available human and material resources to implement planned programmes,” he pointed out.
The minister entreated the DCEs to provide leadership in the administration of their respective districts.
Mr Magbenba cautioned them against over-reliance on the district assemblies common fund and urged them to devise innovative ways of generating more local revenue for the accelerated development of the districts.
The Deputy Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, told the new DCEs that the practice of swearing the official oath was to give them the opportunity to publicly demonstrate their total commitment to the implementation of the government’s policies, plans and programmes.
“By swearing the various oaths, you are going to pledge to act as effective agents of change for your people, give them sincere, honest and carefully thought-through advice on matters that come before you,” he explained.
Mr Laari pledged, on behalf of his colleagues, to help maintain relative peace by working hard to improve the security situation in their respective districts.
“Our administration will be an open one and opportunities will be granted to all, especially the youth and women who constitute the backbone of the development of any nation,” he stated.
Mr Laari further observed that all the four districts had similar challenges such as “security, chieftaincy, land and political disputes, road network and inadequate infrastructure”.
He was, however, glad that the issues about conflict in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo district was gradually being resolved, while the major ones such as youth unemployment, lack of potable water, inadequate health and educational facilities were yet to be addressed.

Case of ambush at Nakpanduri...ANOTHER COP DIES (PAGE 3, OCT 22, 2010)

2010-10-22T05:13:00.001-07:00

ONE of the policemen who got injured during an attack on them while on duty on the Nakpanduri Scarp in the Northern Region last Sunday has died of his wounds.
Constable Owusu Frimpong died early yesterday morning at the Nalerigu Hospital, where he was admitted following the injuries he sustained from the attack.
His death brings to two, the number of policemen who have lost their lives following Sunday’s attack by the gunmen believed to be under the command of Johnson Soloma Kombian, who has been described by the police as a notorious jail breaker.
Kombian is also suspected to be recruiting young men to be carrying out a series of criminal activities along the scarp.
Constable Prince Agyare died earlier during the attack and his body has been deposited at the morgue of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, leaving Lance Corporal Osei Bonsu, who was airlifted to Accra for further medical treatment, as the lone survivor.
They were attacked while on patrol duties in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District.
The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Northern Regional Police Command, Chief Inspector Ebenezer Tetteh, confirmed the latest death to the Daily Graphic in Tamale yesterday.
Meanwhile, four persons have been arrested in connection with the attack on the three policemen.
The suspects are Talata Sonika, Yenuduki Kombian, Bitian Kombian and Fintima Kunchan and are currently in police custody in Tamale to be arraigned.
The police administration has mounted a search for Johnson Soloma Kombian and offered a prize of GH¢3,000 to anyone who would provide information that would lead to his arrest.
A high-powered delegation from the police headquarters in Accra is expected to visit the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District to assess the situation on the ground.

FOUR ARRESTED IN CONNECTION WITH SHOOTING OF COPS (BACK PAGE, OCT 21, 2010)

2010-10-21T03:59:00.001-07:00

FOUR persons have been arrested in connection with the attack on three policemen on the Nankpanduri scarp in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District, which resulted in the death of one policeman and injuries to two others.
The suspects, Talata Sonika, Yenuduki Kombian, Bitian Kombian and Fintima Kunchan, were arrested last Tuesday at their hideout in Nankpanduri upon a tip-off.
A police source said Talata was alleged to have taken part in the attack on the police personnel on the scarp while Fintima was reportedly harbouring the notorious criminal Johnson Soloma Kombian in his house.
Johnson Soloma Kombian is believed to have masterminded the attack on the police personnel, which left Constable Prince Agyare dead and Lance Corporal Osei Bonsu and Constable Owusu Frimpong seriously injured.
Bonsu has been flown to Accra for further treatment while arrangements were still being made for Frimpong to be airlifted from the Nalerigu Hospital to Accra.
Johnson Soloma Kombian has been on the police wanted list for several years and has gained notoriety as a jail-breaker.
Kombian is also suspected to be recruiting young men in the area to be carrying out all manner of criminal activities along the scarp.
The national security apparatus has been placed on high alert while a thorough search has begun to arrest him.
Meanwhile the outgoing Northern Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Angwubutoge Awuni, has led a team of police officials to visit one of the injured policemen at the Nalerigu Hospital. He described the officer’s condition as being stable.

DON'T CHANGE DATE FOR ASSEMBLY POLLS...Civil Society urges EC (PAGE 13, OCT 14, 2010)

2010-10-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

CIVIL Society Organisations (CSOS) in the Northern Region have called on the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to ensure that the December 28, 2010 date fixed for the District and Unit Committee elections is not changed.
The organisations, observed that the postponement of the date from October 23 to December 28, 2010 would create a power vacuum in all the 170 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) and affect the activities of the assemblies.
It will also deny the people the opportunity to demand accountability within the period.
The Facilitator of the CSO Forum, Mr Alhassan Awal, made the call at a press conference in Tamale on emerging issues of the 2010 District and Unit Committee Elections.
The conference followed a forum held on September 6, 2010 by the 21 members of the CSOs to critically assess the forthcoming district assembly elections.
According to Mr Awal, the CSOs observed with grave concern “key stakeholders’ contribution to the postponement of the 2010 district assembly elections that had created confusion and worry to aspirants and wondered if government and the EC attached importance to this important national exercise”.
The facilitator urged the government to ensure the availability of the needed resources to enable the EC and the National Commission for Civic Education to create awareness on the new date and also encourage citizens to participate actively in the process.
Mr Awal equally pointed out the need for the President to use his executive powers during the period of the power vacuum to ensure that the activities of the assemblies were not interrupted.
He appealed to Parliament and other stakeholders whose duty it was to expedite action on resolving the legal aspect of the new date to immediately take action to bring to rest the current legal debate on the exercise.
The facilitator further explained that the postponement had created frustration among aspiring candidates who had already invested their resources in the campaign towards the earlier date of the elections.
“Citizens’ interest in the district assembly elections is likely to experience a serious setback which can affect operationalisation of the decentralisation concept”, he stressed.
According to Mr Awal, a few people who have to manage the resources of the assembly during the power vacuum created before the new date of the elections are likely to execute projects that may not reflect the needs of the people and further defeat the decentralisation concept.
“In the opinion of the CSO forum, the district assembly elections are as important as the presidential and parliamentary elections and must be given all the seriousness that it deserves”, he stated.

MAJAH INTRODUCES MOBILE CAR WASH (PAGE 23, OCT 14, 2010)

2010-10-13T04:06:00.000-07:00

LIFE, they say is not a bed of roses. But for those who persevere, they will be crowned with success at the end of the day. This has always been the philosophy of a young and enterprising man, Abubakari Majah, 23, who is currently into mobile washing of vehicles in the Tamale Metropolis.
By dint of hard work and perseverance, Majah mooted the idea of acquiring a motor-tricycle fitted with a water tank, pump and hose for washing vehicles any where and at the convenience of customers. Vehicle owners no longer have to drive to washing bays to have their cars washed for them. For one thing, Majah’s idea is the first of its kind in the metropolis.
Born in Tamale to the Late Yakubu Boti and Madam Mariama Yaa Medura, Majah had his primary and Junior High School (JHS) education at the Bawku Cluster of Schools in the Upper East Region and the Tishegu Anglican School in Tamale respectively.
Indeed Majah’s dream in life has always been to acquire a university education and preferably, a degree but as fate would have it, he could not achieve that due to lack of financial support.
After completing his JHS education in 2000, he had admission to the Northern Business College (NOBISCO) but could not afford the fees. Majah later attended the Tamale Polytechnic where he read Agricultural Engineering.
He later joined the Late Maurice Merga, a former presenter at Radio Justice in Tamale to acquire some experience in broadcasting. In 2004, the young man wrote the private Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination also known as NOV/DEC.
Unfortunately for him, he could not pass the examination and was determined to write another one when death laid its icy hands on his father in 2005.
According to Majah, he still had the ambition to re-write the examinations in order to gain admission to the University but he faced financial constraints.
Since life must continue, he decided to join the Top Class Entertainment Company and fortunately for him, he passed an audition and was asked to be assisting Nana Oye Lithur now a Lawyer.
“I tried not to be lazy and so I used my leisure hours to read anything I came across to help broaden my knowledge and if possible to discover more opportunities” he stated.
He intimated that at a point in his life he realised that determination, prayer and diligence were key to success and that although he had many friends, he did not imitate their bad lifestyles saying “I am not a copy cat”.
Realising that he could not get the needed support to help register and re-write the NOV/DEC, he tried to help himself “without being lawless”.
He tried writing fiction stories for broadcast on the various Accra-based FM stations. “When I saw that I was not making any headway, I decided to come back to Tamale and see what else to do” he said further.
He said he tried attending classes to enable him re-write the private SSCE so as to pass with good grades but this efforts proved futile as the major problem again was how to raise money to sponsor himself.
After deep thinking, he came out with the idea of cleaning the windscreens of vehicles, particularly when they are in traffic just to raise some funds.
According to Majah, he equally engaged in other menial jobs to raise money for his education as well as to feed his mother and sister’s children.
Then again another idea struck him, and that was to acquire a facility that will enable him to wash vehicles at anywhere and at anytime.
Majah had support from his brother to purchase the Motor-Tricycle and added his personal savings to acquire the water pump, tank and other facilities for the job. But the young man was quick to add that his priority was to raise money to pay for his fees to re-write his examination to enable him to pursue university education in Agricultural Science and Entrepreneurial skills.
Majah speaks Dagbani, Hausa and Twi which facilitates his business as he is able to communicate with people from all walks of life who need his services. He urged his colleagues to continue to persevere in life and to avoid depending on people.

2 NGOS DRAW PROGRAMME TO ASSIST 'WITCHES' (PAGE 11, OCT 12, 2010)

2010-10-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

TWO non-governmental organisations, Songtaba and ActionAid Ghana have drawn up a programme to work closely with the various district assemblies in the Northern Region where witches camps are located to effectively help and respond to the concerns of the alleged witches.
Dubbed “Exit Plan and Sustainability Strategy” the programme will be implemented between now and 2015, to help build the confidence of the alleged witches, mostly women and children who are confined to the six witches camps in the Northern Region. The non-governmental organisations are Songtaba and ActionAid.
As part of the programme, the two organisations will increase awareness of the women on their rights, as well as co-ordinate with the district assemblies to set up responsive budget to meet the social needs of the inmates in the short to medium term.
The promotion of a violence free environment for children staying in the camps, as well as enjoying rights to education devoid of stigmatisation will also be enhanced under the plan.
The six camps are located at Gnani in the Yendi Municipality , Kukuo in the Nanumba South District, Bonyansi in the Central Gonja District, Gambaga in the East Mamprusi District, Naboli and Kpatinga all in the Gushiegu District.
Since 2006, Songtaba together with its partners have been playing leading roles of working in these camps with the aim of empowering the alleged witches to live dignified lives and enjoy their respective basic rights including participating in the decision-making process in a violence free environment.
The organisations have been facing such challenges as alleged entrenched and insensitive attitude of some personalities, particularly in state institutions’ response to the needs of inmates at the various camps.
Indeed, that problem had affected the response to myriad of problems facing the alleged witches thereby leaving them in abject poverty.
Inadequate funds to support the immediate needs of the women in all the six camps is another challenge while re-integrating these women accused of witchcraft into the society also hangs in a balance although the two organisations have been advocating the effective implementation of laws such as the Domestic Violence Law.
Inspite of these challenges, the two organisations have been able to facilitate the payment of the annual premium of the National Health Insurance Scheme for alleged witches at the Gnani Camp in Yendi in 2007.
It is also heart warming to note that, through the efforts of the two organisations, the six alleged witches camp with a total population of 674 inmates were enlightened on their rights.
Between 2007 and 2010, the two organisations facilitated the cultivation of maize in the six camps as a way of helping to provide enough food for the alleged witches.
An Alleged Witches Network called the Ti-Gbub’taba Women’s Network was introduced to intensify lobbying and engagement with government authorities and other development agencies to make life bearable for the inmates.
Reflect Circles were also introduced in the Gnani camp at Yendi to help raise the awareness on the rights of the alleged witches.
At a recent meeting of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Tamale, the Programme Officer of Songtaba, Madam Adam Lamnatu, intimated that “the work with alleged witches" camps is a key activity in the strategy of mobilising women in the overall objective of Songtaba’s partnership with ActionAid to curb violence against women and children”.
Some of the participants at the meeting expressed concern about the brutalities being meted out to the alleged witches and resolved to help address the issue.

RENEWAL ENERGY PROJECT LAUNCHED AT WALEWALE (PAGE 19, OCT 9, 2010)

2010-10-10T08:45:00.001-07:00

A Jetropha project aimed at increasing access to improved modern and renewable energy services in rural communities has been inaugurated at Walewale in the West Mamprusi District of the Northern Region.
The €2 million project will ensure the establishment of 500 hectares of the plant in seven beneficiary communities over a five-year period. They are Bimbini, Wungu, Kparigu, Nasia, Loagri Number Two, Janga and Yama.
It is being financed by the European Union (EU), with support from the Technology Consultancy Centre of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Tamale and the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
New Energy, a Tamale-based non-governmental organisation, and the Desertification Research Group of the University of Sassari in Italy are also partners in the project.
The project co-ordinator, Professor Giuseppe Enne, indicated that the Jetropha Curcas plant had a strong adaptation capacity and a long productive lifespan of up to 30 years.
He further explained that the project was expected to help develop and construct an appropriate and cost-effective expeller for Jetropha oil extraction and the establishment of a localised small-scale facility in selected rural communities.
Prof. Enne said the project would increase the financial and educational status of women and other marginal groups leading to higher social status.
The Deputy Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, noted that about 69 per cent of the total energy consumed in the country was from the already depleting forest resources.
According to him, the effects of climate change and rising cost of fossil fuel have compelled the government to look for clean, alternative and sustainable fuel to meet the energy demands of the country.
The West Mamprusi District Chief Executive, Mr Sulley Zakaria, observed that the project would help ensure sustainable livelihood conditions in rural communities through the use of the Jetropha plant.
Mr Zakaria entreated the beneficiary communities to own the project and put in their maximum efforts by giving the project equal attention as they would do to their maize or rice farms.

CHASS MUST NOT CHASTISE GOVT — LUDWIG (PAGE 12, OCT 5, 2010)

2010-10-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

THE National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Ludwig Hlodze, has called on the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) to avoid “chastising the government” for lapses in the education sector, particularly the senior high school (SHS) system.
He noted that the NDC government would not allow the future of the youth in the country to be ruined by the implementation of bad policies since the government was committed to promoting quality education in the country.
Mr Hlodze made the call in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Tamale during his three-day working visit to the Northern Region.
As part of his visit, the Youth Organiser held a meeting with various youth groups in the area and held discussions with Regional and Constituency executives of the party.
He also addressed a youth forum organised by the Tertiary Education Institution Network (TEIN) of the NDC at the Tamale Polytechnic campus.
“As far as the government is concerned, the President is doing his best to address the distortion in the senior high school system”, he stressed.
Mr Hlodze entreated CHASS to evolve effective strategies that would help address the lapses in the education system rather than blaming the government for the problems in the sector.
He commended former President Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings for his enormous contribution to the establishment of the University for Development Studies (UDS) which has campuses in the three Northern Regions.
He further commended President John Evans Atta Mills for facilitating the establishment of two new universities in the Volta and Brong Ahafo regions.
Mr Hlodze advised the youth in the region to refrain from lawless acts in order to promote peace which is a prerequisite for the accelerated development of the area.
He further entreated them to unite and exercise restraint in making their legitimate demands since the government would not relent in its efforts to make them realise their full potential.
According to him, it was important for the youth to work together as a team to help make the “Better Ghana Agenda” successful.
Mr Hlodze indicated that government was working hard to put in place the required structures that would enable the youth to realise their potential and contribute meaningfully to the country’s development agenda.

TAMALE CENTRAL MARKET NEEDS REHABILITATION (PAGE 23, OCT 4, 2010)

2010-10-03T11:02:00.001-07:00

THE Tamale Central Market, which is located within the central business district (CBD) of the metropolis, needs a facelift.
Members of the Progressive Traders Association (PTA) and visitors to the market have on countless occasions raised serious concerns about the poor facilities at the market. The muddy nature of the walkways anytime it rains is a major source of worry to residents as well.
Due to the poor nature of the walkways some residents are reluctant to go to the market to buy food items.
The spaces between the sheds and stores are almost always flooded.
It is common to see both men and women raising either their trousers or long skirts and dresses to prevent them from being stained by the muddy water.
Those who transact business there eventually come out of the market soaked with water and mud after they have bought their items.
The market is strategically located so travellers in big trucks to and from the Sahelian region stop by to buy food items. It was renovated by the traders in 1980, following a fire outbreak.
When contacted on the issue, the Public Affairs Manager of the TaMA, Mr Issah Musah, stated that the assembly was liaising with the PTA to help raise funds to help renovate the walkways and structures at the market.
That, he stated, would ultimately help to boost business activities in the metropolis.
Mr Musah, therefore, entreated traders to bear with the assembly while it took concrete steps to address the situation.
He acknowledged that the strategic location of the market was critical to boosting commercial activities in the metropolis, hence it must be put in good shape.
The Secretary to the PTA, Mr Thomas Ade, said that the PTA, in collaboration with the TaMA, was evolving effective strategies to sensitise traders to the dangers of fire outbreaks.
According to him, for years, conditions at the market had been of grave concern to the PTA members.
He suggested to the assembly to include the provision of security lights in the rehabilitation work to be done at the market.
Mr Ade was optimistic that patronage of the market would increase in the years ahead in spite of the many challenges confronting traders.

TAMALE CENTRAL MARKET NEEDS REHABILITATION (PAGE 23, OCT 4, 2010)

2010-10-03T10:59:00.002-07:00

EPA AWARDS DUUYIN FOR PRESERVING ENVIRONMENT (PAGE 23, OCT 4, 2010)

2010-10-03T10:59:00.001-07:00

THE Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared Duuyin, a peri-urban farming community in the Tamale Metropolis, as the best environmentally friendly community in the Northern Region for 2010.
This follows the progress made by the community in preserving its vegetation through the avoidance of bush burning and other harmful environmental practices.
The community was presented with a certificate, cutlasses, wellington boots and water cans during this year’s Environmental Day celebration, which took place at Duuyin.
Awards were also presented to other individuals and institutions that have contributed immensely to promoting environmental sustainability.
The Daily Graphic, Enquirer and Advocate newspapers, as well as Radio Justice were awarded for devoting much of their news content to environmental issues, particularly those pertaining to the Northern Region.
The World Environmental Day, which falls on June 5 each year, was set aside by the United Nations in 1972 to stimulate worldwide awareness on the need to conserve the environment by advocating more political commitment and civil society involvement in conservation issues.
The Director of the EPA, Mr Iddrisu Abu, said more efforts needed to be made towards regenerating the north’s depleted forestry and vegetative resources in order to combat desertification.
He said activities like bush burning, charcoal production, illegal logging, surface mining and other harmful practices continued to impact negatively on the environment.
Mr Abu said the EPA was implementing the Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP) which is a five-year (2009-2013) project that was designed to strengthen the capacity of public institutions and rural communities in the three northen regions, in order to reverse land degradation and desertification.
The GEMP is being funded by the Canadian Government through a special funding arrangement co-ordinated by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
The director said the EPA had facilitated the establishment of 20 Environmental Management Committees (EMCs) in all the districts, while over 100 of such committees had been established at the community levels as part of the GEMP implementation.
“In addition, we have formed 20 new environmental clubs in some basic and second cycle schools in the region, while 10 of such clubs which were defunct, have also been reactivated”, he further mentioned.
All these activities, Mr Abu stated, were expected to strengthen the beneficiary communities to be able to address environmental issues in a co-ordinated and sustained manner.
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, said the environment and natural resources were like property that had been passed on from generation to generation due to its importance to life.
He said it was, therefore, prudent that the current generation utilised these resources wisely if they were not to deny future generations the use of these essential resources and re-echoed the saying, “when the last tree dies, the last man dies.”

GBEWAA YOUTH REHABILITATE AREA ROADS (PAGE 23, OCT 4, 2010)

2010-10-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

THE heavy downpours that have characterised this year’s raining season have left many roads linking most district capitals and communities in the Northern Region in poor shape.
Many of the roads have been rendered unusable as they have been reduced to potholes, rocks and large gutters filled with muddy water.
In Tamale, some of the untarred roads which have been damaged by the rains can be found in Kukuo, Koblimahagu, Wurishe, Gumani, Bulpela, Gbewa and some peri-urban communities.
In most of these communities, the residents are awaiting authorisation by the assembly before rehabilitating these damaged roads.
However, the youth of Gbewa, one of the emerging suburbs of Tamale, near Kukuo, say they cannot continue to wait on the assembly, while the roads further deteriorate.
According to them, the damaged roads and gutters were impeding movement in and around the community.
They also noted that the rainwater had collected in choked gutters and potholes, resulting in floods and the breeding of mosquitoes.
Last weekend, about 30 of them came together to do some stop gap repair works on the damaged roads in the vicinity.
With a few shovels, hoes and cutlasses, the exuberant young men cleared some of the gutters that had been choked with silt, thereby allowing the water that had been trapped to run freely.
They also sealed potholes and cleared the weeds that had grown along the sides of some of the streets. This led to the recovery of portions of the road that had been consumed by weedy grass.
Although most of the youth in the area do not use cars, they told the Daily Graphic that their desire was to keep their area roads in good shape in order to facilitate the movement of residents and visitors.
One of the leaders, Abdul Sadiq, commended the communal spirit exhibited by the youth in the area, and described it as very rare.
He said in the past, it was a common phenomenon to see community members being mobilise to undertake some activities in the interest of the community.
“This phenomenon is, however, fast declining in modern Ghana, particularly due to the increasing urbanisation of various towns”, he stated.
Mr Sadiq, however, entreated the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly to endeavour to repair the damaged roads, since the efforts of the youth could not sustain the condition of the roads.

TAMALE'S POTENTIALS NOT FULLY TAPPED (PAGE 23, OCT 4, 2010)

2010-10-03T10:54:00.001-07:00

THE investment potentials of the Tamale Metropolis are enormous. Unfortunately, these potentials have not been fully tapped for the accelerated development of the sprawling city and its residents.
The sunflower industry, for instance, is an export earning one that investors can take advantage of. According to experts, especially Dr. H. Schubert, a German agronomist, Soya bean can overtake cocoa in less than 10years if given the desired push.
The demand for sunflower products is high; European Union consumed over 2.1 metric tonnes in 1996 and 1997 alone.
A pilot project (farms) has been undertaken in the Metropolis and results prove that sunflower could be grown successfully and profitably in the area.
The Metropolis, together with the some peri-urban communities, produce large quantities of rice, cotton, groundnuts, shea-nuts and beans particularly, soya beans.
There are a few companies which process some of these agricultural products into finished goods for the market. However, most of these companies are distressed financially and require enormous capital to revamp their operations.
There is the potential to develop the manufacturing sector, particularly in vehicle repair, prefabrication of spare parts, cutlasses, bullock ploughs and trailers, leather works, pottery and carpentry.
These are all areas investors can explore for the mutual benefit of both residents and the investors themselves.
The phenomenal growth in population of the Metropolis has a lot of implications for real estate development. From a mere population of 40,000 in 1960, it increased to 167,778 in 1994 and it is currently about 300,000, according to the 2000 Population and Housing Census.
Even though the housing stock also increased, it did not match with the demand for housing, especially among the middle and high-income groups.
This high demand for housing emanates from the proliferation of non-governmental organisations in the Metropolis coupled with the demand from civil servants posted to the metropolis and also from the informal sector.
There is ample land which is relatively cheap and investors interested in real estate development can exploit the exciting situation to their advantage.
It has been suggested to the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) to invest in sightseeing facilities like zoological gardens, botanical gardens, museums and entertainment (theatres), shopping malls, art and craft village to give incentive to craftsmen and other small-scale operators.

NPP YOUTH DEMONSTRATE IN TAMALE (PAGE 12, OCT 2, 2010)

2010-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

A group within the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Concerned Elephants Youth Association (CEYA), have expressed concern about the continuous detention and delay in the trial of five of its members who were alleged to have been involved in disturbances in Tamale in February last year.
The group further called on the judiciary to impress upon the judges to fast track the case at the Tamale High Court to ensure a speedy trial.
The five, Yahuza Yakubu, Adinu Dagbana, Majeed Alhassan, Alhassan Sayibu,Imoro Gundaanaa, were arrested and detained following political disturbances between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the NPP in February last year.
The violence led to the death of one person and the burning down of some houses and property around the Choggu, Gumbihini and Nyohini areas.
The leader of the group, Mr Rashid Haruna, stated this in a petition signed by him and presented to the Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, in Tamale.
It followed a peaceful demonstration through the streets of the metropolis.
“It is exactly 19 months today when our colleagues have been in detention under the watch of your government that promised a better Ghana agenda and claiming equal rights and justice for all” he stated.
Mr Haruna noted that “the continuous detention of our members is politically motivated and we are also compelled to believe that the continuous detention of these five innocent gentlemen is being orchestrated by the NDC to intimidate the foot soldiers of our party”.
According to him, the selective justice and the institution of political detention and trial of some NPP members was not the best.
“We are also aware that the continuous delay of the trial is a calculated plan to silence our youth and put fear in them” the petition further explained.
He expressed regret that it was unfortunate that those in the NPP had to undergo such treatment by a government that claimed to be for all.

DESOUZA UNHAPPY WITH DIRTY SCHOOL COMPOUNDS (PAGE 11, OCT 1, 2010)

2010-10-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

THE Northern Regional Director of Education, Mrs Elizabeth De-Souza, has taken a swipe at authorities of the Dakpema Metropolitan Assembly and the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Cluster of Schools in Tamale for non-performance and negligence of duty.
This is when the director led the Deputy Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive, Alhaji Abdulai Haruna Friday, and the Metropolitan Director of Education, Alhaji Shaani Abdul-Rahman to the schools to mark ‘My First Day at School’.
In the case of the Dakpema school, Mrs De-Souza expressed disappointment over the inability of the authorities to maintain the furniture and infrastructure in the school.
She wondered what the authorities used the Capitation Grant for, saying “you must use the funds judiciously”.
Apparently angry at the sight of a good number of classroom furniture that were packed behind some classrooms begging for maintenance, the director ordered the metropolitan directorate of education not to consider any requests for provision of furniture by the school until the authorities put things right.
‘You must do well to use the funds to reinforce your own doors and windows; if I am the metropolitan director of education, I would not mind you if you put in a request for classroom furniture,” she stated.
Mrs De-Souza advised the School Management Committee and the authorities to hold an emergency meeting to repair the future.
“Let us maintain our classroom furniture; infact until you maintain the old ones nobody would give you new ones,” she further stated.
At the SDA cluster of schools, the director expressed dissatisfaction about the unclean environment, saying “this is a big minus for you.”
Mrs De-Souza was not happy with the authorities for keeping the school compound dirty stressing that “infact you people have disgraced me and what I have seen this morning is bad. I urge you to change your attitude towards work so that the next time I come here, I would see things in a better shape than this.
For his part, Mr Asabigi told the authorities of the schools to work hard to help improve on educational standards in the metropolis.
New pupils were presented with souvenirs, fruit drinks and biscuits.
At the Dakpema School, the authorities recorded 25 new pupils for primary one while the SDA Primary A and B had recorded 68 pupils as of 10:00 am.
Mrs De-Souza later visited schools at Parishei, Jerigu and Duunyin all peri-urban communities.

FEMALE ASPIRANTS PREPARE FOR ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS (PAGE 11, SEPT 30, 2010)

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A former Presiding Member of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly Madam Agnes Atayila, has announced her intention to contest the up-coming assembly election in the Soe-Yipala Electoral Area.
The aspirant, who is a nutrition officer, was first elected assemblywoman for the electoral area in the Bolgatanga Municipality in 2000-2006, and elected the Presiding Member of the assembly from 2004 to 2006.
From 2005-2006, she was the Regional Representative for the Upper East Region at the National Executive Council of the National Association of Local Authority, Ghana (NALAG).
Speaking to the Daily Graphic at Bolgatanga, Madam Atayila said her decision to seek re-election to the assembly was due to her desire to serve her people, especially the unfortunate illiterate women who look up to her for inspiration.
“I believe I have an unfinished agenda in terms of development for my community and I am seeking to re-enter the assembly to work for the interest of my people”, she said.
“As I speak to you today, I am no more an assemblywoman for the area, but I still attend to the needs of my electorate who call on me at home on a daily basis. They still see in me a leader who is always available to hear their concerns. That is my motivation for seeking re-election to lead my people”, she added.
Outlining her vision, Madam Atayila said if given the nod she would engage the youth and women in her electoral area in regular meetings to strategise and map out the development needs of the community.
Her major concern, however, is what she terms “attempts by political parties to thwart efforts of women contestants” by playing out the partisan cards during the election and appealed to political parties to desist from turning the district level elections into a platform for partisan politics.
Madam Atayila is currently the chairperson of the Upper East Regional Cultural Advisory Committee of the Centre for National Culture. In 1999, she was elected the Chairperson of the Board of Governors to the Bolgatanga Girls Secondary School.
She has special skills in community mobilisation, organising trainer of trainers programmes, counselling and inter personal communication, gender and development and rears livestock. In 1997, she was adjudged the Bolgatanga Best District Livestock Farmer.
Among other things, she has facilitated the formation of 126 women support groups in Builsa, Bolgatanga, Bongo and Talensi/Nabdam districts. She also acquired four grinding mills from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for women in the Builsa District to enhance their income generation activities.
She was a District Programme Officer for the World Food Programme (WFP) activities for supplementary feeding for children under 5 years and Breast Feeding Mothers whilst serving in the Bongo District Health Directorate. She was also the focal person for the Catholic Relief Service Food for Survival in the same Bongo District.

Ms Theresa Akosua Serwaah Tettey, a 39-year-old language teacher at the Anfoega Senior High School in the Kpando District, intends to contest the district assembly elections in the Dzigbe-Torkor Electoral Area in the Kpando District. She is optimistic of defeating the incumbent assemblyman for the area.
According to her she has demonstrated her competence and capabilities over the years which had made her a better candidate to be elected as their next representative in the assembly.
She said if given the nod, she would lobby for support to improve sanitation and facilities such as places of convenience and potable water for the community, under the Community Water and Sanitation Programme .
She said since women constituted more than 50 per cent of the country’s population, there was the need to increase their representation at the various levels of the decision-making process to enable them to make meaningful contribution to national development.
She said if given the nod, she would make meaningful contributions to discussions during assembly sittings to help design positive projects and programmes to benefit the community and society as a whole.

Madam Agnes Akusika Mireku is a 59-year-old businesswoman who intends to contest the district assembly elections in the Agudzi-Bame Electoral Area in the Kpando District of the Volta Region. She said her desire was to tackle the challenges facing the area in respect of youth unemployment, adding that with the help of non-governmental organisations and the Department of Women, she would assist the youth to explore opportunities to open up employment avenues for them to make them productive.
She said she would help women to access small loan facilities to undertake development projects and indicated that she would also lobby for a borehole to be drilled to facilitate the cultivation of okro and garden eggs to generate income to bring development to the area.
She also said she would dialogue with teachers and communicate their problems to the appropriate quarters and encourage teachers and pupils to take education seriously.

The aspirant for the Nkonya -Wurupong Electoral Area in the Biakoye District, Madam Florence Leticia Mensah, is a 53 -year old businesswoman. Her aim is to contest the assembly elections to promote the interest of the people.
She said her area of concern was to improve on sanitation facilities in the community with the provision of public places of convenience, check the negative behaviour of some people who ease themselves on “free range” which posed a health hazard to the people.
She said if given the nod, she would collaborate with relevant organisations and individuals to rehabilitate school buildings in the electoral area and also improve on conditions at the local market to boost business activities.
Madam Mensah said she was also concerned about the bad nature of the road linking Tornu and would help extend electricity to more communities in the area, stressing that with the support of the assembly, members of the community and other organisations, she would find workable solutions to these problems.
The aspirant also indicated her intention to mount intensive public education campaign to encourage the youth to desist from social vices, some of which resulted in teenage pregnancy, child labour and truancy.

KARAGA ENDORSES HUSEIN AS DCE (PAGE 12, SEPT 25, 2010)

2010-09-27T04:18:00.000-07:00

MEMBERS of the Karaga District Assembly have finally endorsed Mr Sulemana Husein as the new District Chief Executive for the area.
He polled 32 out of the 34 votes cast, representing 94 per cent of the total votes. A week ago, Mr Husein, 48, a teacher by profession, failed to get the nod from the assembly members when he got 24 out of the 34 votes cast, representing 58 per cent.
A few months ago, the President withdrew the appointments of the former Karaga DCE Alhaji Abdulai Sandow and two other DCEs, Hajia Mavis Bawa of the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District Assembly and Mr Mahama Walvis of the Yendi Municipal Assembly.
The election was supervised by the Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr Sylvester Kanyi.
In his acceptance speech, the new DCE expressed gratitude to the assembly members and the President for the confidence reposed in him and assured them that he would not let them down.
According to him, his administration would focus on areas such as education, health, agriculture and infrastructure development.
“The reversal of the fallen standards in education will be my preoccupation; therefore, all necessary support will be given to achieve this objective” Mr Husein observed.
He explained that the Youth in Agriculture Programme would be strengthened to prevent the youth from being idle, which contributed to the various misunderstandings in the district.
The Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, for his part, advised the members to iron out their differences for the accelerated development of the area.
He pointed out that issues of conflict and divisive tendencies adversely affected socio-economic development of any society, hence concrete steps must be taken to nip them in the bud.

4 ARRESTED FOR HIGHWAY ROBBERY (PAGE 3, SEPT 25, 2010)

2010-09-27T04:09:00.000-07:00

FOUR suspected accomplices of a gang of armed robbers have been arrested by the police in the Northern Region to assist in their investigations into a highway robbery attack on two commercial buses at Diare on the Tamale-Bolgatanga road.
The suspects, Abdulai Ali, 21, Charles Sarpong, 17, Musah Osman, 28, and Mohammed Sumaila, 20, were on board the buses and were believed to be accomplices who gave information to a gang of armed robbers who opened fire on the buses travelling from Bolgatanga in the Upper East region to Accra last Thursday.
Two persons who sustained injuries and have been identified as Kwesi Adjei, the driver of the Yutong bus, and Augustine Abonza, a passenger, are receiving medical attention.
According to the Public Relations Officer (PRO), Chief Inspector Ebenezer Tetteh, a Daewoo bus, with registration number AS 5546/09, and a Yutong bus, with registration number GC 5054 Z, were allegedly attacked at about 4p.m. on Thursday, September 23, 2010, by a group of suspected armed robbers.
The alleged robbers were said to have opened fire on the buses and fled upon sensing danger.
Mr Tetteh said before the incident, the four suspects were heard talking to a group of people on their mobile phones.
Some of the occupants of the buses alleged that they later saw a man coming out of the bush but he quickly ran back and within a short time they were attacked by five masked armed men, who allegedly fired at the buses, injuring the two persons in the process.
Mr Tetteh said the police had mounted a thorough search for the five armed men who escaped and that the four suspects would be arraigned when found culpable of the offence.
The PRO entreated residents of the region to be law-abiding and to volunteer information to the police.
He said the police would intensify its day and night patrols on the Tamale-Bolgatanga highway to help reduce armed robberies on the road and make commuters travel without entertaining fears.
Meanwhile, the Regional Police Command has given the two buses police escort to avert the recurrence of similar attacks.

YENDI ASSEMBLY CONFIRMS ZAKARIA AS DCE (PAGE 13, SEPT 21, 2010)

2010-09-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

THE Yendi Municipal Assembly has confirmed Mr Issah Zakariah as the new Municipal Chief Executive (MCE).
Mr Zakariah, a former Circuit Supervisor of the Ghana Education Service (GES), polled 45 votes out of 61, representing 73.8 per cent of the total votes cast. Sixteen members voted against his nomination.
He thus gained two-thirds of the majority of the votes by the 61-member house. The election, supervised by the Northern Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Mr Sylvester Kanyi, was held under tight security.
A few months ago, the President revoked the appointments of the Yendi Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Mahama Welvis, together with two other DCEs at Karaga and Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo, Alhaji Abdulai Sandow and Hajia Mavis Bawa respectively.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Zakariah expressed gratitude to the President and members of the assembly for the confidence reposed in him.
“I equally see my position as an honour and a challenging one that requires the support of all stakeholders to enable me to achieve the desired results”, he noted.
According to him, the municipality had been sharply divided along “various lines over the years”.
The new MCE, therefore, pledged his commitment towards uniting the people for the accelerated development of the area.
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, thanked the assembly members for approving the President’s nominee and urged the people, particularly the youth to support him to accelerate development in the municipality.
The Presiding Member, Mr Iddrisu Hussein, said there was no doubt that the absence of a substantive MCE had slowed down development in the area.

40 ASPIRANTS COMPLETE TRAINING (PAGE 12, SEPT 20, 2010)

2010-09-20T05:35:00.001-07:00

FORTY women aspirants from the three northern regions have completed a four-day training workshop on women’s participation in the political decision-making process in Tamale.
The workshop was aimed, among other objectives, to increase women’s participation in political decision-making as a prerequisite for good governance and accelerated national development.
The participants discussed such issues as gender perspectives on active politics in Ghana, gender mainstreaming and good governance, voting as a civic responsibility, the art of public speaking and simulation of the campaign platform among others.
It was organised by the Christian Mothers’ Association (CMA) in collaboration with the German Development Co-operation (GTZ) under its support for Decentralisation Reforms Programme.
The Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive, Alhaji Abdulai Haruna Friday, observed that increasing women’s participation in politics would ultimately enhance the country’s democracy and good governance.
He, therefore, urged politicians and policy makers to help evolve effective strategies that would create a congenial atmosphere for more women to take part in the decision-making process.
Alhaji Haruna further explained that increasing the numbers of women in positions of trust would equally help promote peace in the north.
The Executive Secretary of the CMA, Madam Elizabeth Addai-Boateng encouraged women to be assertive and not leave the political decision making process in the hands of men alone.
The Junior Advisor of the GTZ, Mr Hamza Bukari,advised women aspirants not to withdraw from contesting the forthcoming district level elections.
One of the aspirants at Jirapa in the Upper West Region, Madam Nathalia Debuo, pledged on behalf of her colleagues to work hard to take up political appointments at any level to enable them contribute meaningfully to the development of their respective communities.
“For us educating our children is critical and we ask our men to support, guide and direct us to achieve the desired results” she stressed.

NDC DENIES DEFECTION STORY (PAGE 12, SEPT 20, 2010)

2010-09-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

THE Northern Regional Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Mohammed Abew, has stated that recent media reports to the effect that 10,000 youth in Tamale had defected from the NDC to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) were unfounded.
He told the Daily Graphic in Tamale that the move was a strategy by a few aggrieved youth in the area to compel the leadership of the NDC to provide jobs for them.
According to Mr Abew he had met with some aggrieved youth in Tamale and asked them to write down their names for consideration in future recruitment exercises under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
“As far as I am concerned I heard 87 group of youths on a Tamale based FM station claiming they had defected from the NDC to the NPP”.
According to Mr Abew some of the youths making such claims did not have the requisite qualification that could earn them jobs under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
“In fact as I speak to you now none have been able to provide a certificate to warrant their job placement under the NYEP”, he stated.
Mr Abew,who is also the regional co-ordinator of the NYEP, observed that the challenge of providing the youth in Tamale with jobs was huge.
He expressed optimism that when the road maintenance module of the NYEP rolls out by next week, some of them would be considered and recruited but advised them to develop themselves to enable them to fit into the job market.
The organiser noted that the rehabilitation of the Tamale Teaching hospital was likely to provide more jobs for the unemployed youth in Tamale and entreated them to exercise restraint.
“Those who think that they can use such tactics to discredit the NDC government are not being sincere to themselves; some perceive the government to be slow which is not true because the economy for the first 20 months had been stabilised with more capital injected into it.” he contended.
Mr Abew further intimated that it was not possible for every youth to get a job at the same time, adding that some would get theirs today while others would get theirs later.
According to him the Changli Electoral Area where the aggrieved youth were coming from had benefited immensely from the NYEP programme compared to other suburbs of the metropolis and described their action as uncalled for.
In a related development, the NDC, has noted with grave concern the continuous attempt by the NPP and their collaborators in the media to create the erroneous impression that the NDC is becoming unpopular, by orchestrating defection stories.
The latest the party noted, was a story aired by an Accra FM station alleging that 10,000 NDC supporters in the Northern Region have defected to the NPP.
“We wish to state unequivocally that the story is not only false, fallacious and mischievous but is also a demonstration of shoddy, faulty and irresponsible journalism”, it said.
A statement signed by Mr Richard Quashigah, NDC National Propaganda Secretary, pointed out that the FM radio station reporter who put out the story had admitted that his story was only based on what an executive member of the Northern Region branch of the NPP told him.
In the said news report, the reporter sought to create the impression that the NDC Northern Regional Secretary, Imoro Yussifu Alhassan, justified the reasons for the defection, a move Mr Quashigah pointed out was not true.

ARMED ROBBERS THREATEN TRADERS IN NAKPANDURI AREAS (PAGE 21, SEPT 18, 2010)

2010-09-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

RESIDENTS, particularly traders who commute between Garu in the Upper East Region and Nakpanduri in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District of the Northern Region on a daily basis to transact business, still live in fear of the nefarious activities of a gang of armed robbers, led by one Johnson Soloma Kombien.
Kombien, described as a notorious jail-breaker, has been on the police wanted list for some years now.
According to the District Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Abdulai Mumuni, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic at Bunkpurugu, robbery, particularly the stealing of motorbikes, was rampant.
He explained that although a highway patrol team had been constituted to check the nefarious activities of the gang, they usually escaped before the team got to the scene of robbery.
ASP Mumuni attributed the situation to the inability of residents to volunteer information, for fear that they might be victimised by the armed robbers, particularly Kombien.
The commander further intimated that the “poor nature of roads, coupled with inadequate logistics, make it difficult for us to clamp down on the activities of armed robbers”.
He said investigations show that Kombien had been recruiting the youth in the area for robbery.
ASP Mumuni said the police would soon embark on an exercise to check and impound unregistered motorbikes in the district, as a strategy to end the stealing of motorbikes.
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, who is also acting as the District Chief Executive for Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo, expressed concern about the spate of armed robberies in the area and urged the District Security Committee to map out effective strategies to check such criminal activities in the area.
“I have also directed the district assembly to assist the police to ensure effective security in the area” he stressed.

KARAGA ASSEMBLY FAILS TO ENDORSE PREZ'S NOMINEE (PAGE 12, SEPT 16, 2010)

2010-09-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

MEMBERS of the Karaga District Assembly have failed to endorse the President’s nominee for the position of a District Chief Executive (DCE).
Sulemana Issah, 48, a teacher got 58 per cent of the votes when he polled 20 out of the 34 votes cast. Thirteen out of the 34 members present did not approve of his nomination, while there was one spoilt ballot paper.
The election, supervised by the Northern Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Mr Sylvester Kanyi, was held under tight security.
A couple of months ago, the President revoked the position of the former Karaga DCE, Alhaji Abdulai Sandow together with two other DCEs, Hajia Mavis Bawa of the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District Assembly and Mahama Walvis of the Yendi Municipal Assembly.
The Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, appealed to members of the house to bury their differences for the accelerated development of the area.
He stressed the need for them to forge ahead in unity, saying divisive tendencies had serious repercussions on the future development of the district.
Mr Mabengba noted that the delay in approving nominees for the position of a DCE had its own problems and hoped the members would confirm the nominee at their next election.
He pointed out that development challenges of the district were enormous including creating a peaceful atmosphere, as well as job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youth in the district.

LAARI ENDORSED DISTRICT CIEF EXECUTIVE FOR BUNKPURUGU-YUNYOO (PAGE 12, SEPT 16, 2010)

2010-09-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

A former Northern Regional Commander of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr Philip Laari, has been unanimously endorsed as the new District Chief Executive for the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District Assembly.
He polled 100 per cent of the votes after all the 37 assembly members voted for him.
The election, supervised by the Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Mr Sylvester Kanyi, was held in a peaceful atmosphere as residents resolved to help change the bad image the district had gained in recent times.
A couple of months ago, the President revoked the position of the former DCE, Hajia Mavis Bawa, together with two of her colleagues Alhaji Abdulai Sandow of Karaga and Mahama Walvis of the Yendi Municipality.
The new DCE will be sworn into office next week.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Laari expressed gratitude to President John Evans Atta Mills and the assembly members for the confidence reposed in him and pledged not to disappoint them.
He observed that the district had numerous challenges spanning from unemployment among the youth, land and chieftaincy disputes, as well as inadequate educational facilities.
He, however, noted that those challenges were surmountable and promised to help find lasting solutions to them.
“It is a known fact that ignorance and unemployment often serve as agents for conflict and the assembly’s attention will focus on eliminating these two agents of conflict” Mr Laari further observed.
He explained that the assembly under his administration would encourage the youth and women to form co-operatives to be able to attract some form of assistance to enable them pursue their respective businesses.
The newly elected DCE also mentioned sectors such as road network, school infrastructure, health facilities, potable water, rural electrification, new methods of farming and security as areas that would be given priority under his administration.
“It is time to put our ugly past behind us and to use our share of the national cake for development but not to feed security personnel working to end avoidable conflicts; we can do it because others have done it, even Liberia has done it” he pointed out.
The Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, thanked the people for the peaceful manner in which they elected the new DCE.
He entreated the media to portray the positive issues about the area, saying “this district has been in the news for the wrong reasons and this must change for the accelerated development of the area”.

THREE HIGHWAY ROBBERS UNDER ARREST (SPREAD, SEPT 13, 2010)

2010-09-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

THE Police at Bunkpurugu in the Northern Region have arrested three suspected armed robbers for snatching two motorbikes, mobile phones and other valuable items from their victims.
Those arrested are Samson Bawa, Duut Jekper and Kombien Kantam.
They are believed to be between the ages of 26 and 30 and are suspected to be members of a gang of robbers trained by a notorious jail-breaker, Johnson Soloma Kombien, and believed to be responsible for most of the robbery incidents in the area.
The acting Northern Regional Crime Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Stephen Tetteh, told the Daily Graphic in Tamale that the victims of the robbery were returning from Sankase in the Upper East Region to Nankpanduri when they were attacked by four men armed with G3 rifles and locally manufactured pistols.
The robbers snatched two motorbikes, Video Compact Disc (VCD) players and mobile phones belonging to the victims.
ASP Tetteh said fortunately the robbers did not take along the remote controls meant for the motorbikes.
He said when the victims got to their destination, they decided to use the remote controls within Nankpanduri to trace the motorbikes.
He said the motorbikes responded to the remote gadgets in Kombien’s room, from where the victims could hear the responses.
He stated that the victims reported the matter to the police but before the team got to the scene, the gang had allegedly taken the motorbikes to another location for hiding.
ASP Tetteh said when the police conducted a search in Kombien’s room they found a locally manufactured gun and a bayonet and subsequently arrested him.
In the evening, he said, upon a tip-off, the police went in search of the remaining two suspects and arrested them. The stolen items were retrieved from them.
Meanwhile, the suspects have been brought to the Tamale office of the Regional Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to assist the police in investigations.

EDUCATION CLINIC FOR 113 JHS GIRLS (PAGE 11, SEPT 8, 2010)

2010-09-08T02:20:00.001-07:00

A FOUR-DAY Annual Girls Education Clinic on the theme, “empowering girls for effective leadership,” has taken place in Tamale in the Northern Region with 113 junior high school (JHS) girls from eight districts of the Northern and Brong Ahafo regions participating.
The programme was aimed, among other things, to increase school survival and achievement rates among girls by offering them the opportunity to develop the virtues of self-confidence and assertiveness through socialisation and interaction with their respective peers.
The girls made a passionate appeal to parents, guardians and traditional authorities to find ways of halting the alarming rate of early marriages among girls in the districts.
They equally stressed the need for stakeholders in the education of girls to draw up effective education campaign programmes to help change the attitudes and mindsets of parents who force their girls into early marriages, preventing them from continuing their education.
The girls, who were from JHSs in the Asunafo South and Tano South districts of the Brong Ahafo region, East Gonja, Kpandai, Sawla-Kalba-Tuna, Gushiegu, Karaga and Bole, made the appeal through the Daily Graphic in Tamale.
The education clinic was organised by Ibis Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) with support from the Ghana Education Service (GES).
One of the girls, Mavis Alhassan, 14, who is currently in JHS 1at the Sawla Girls Model School, noted that the issue of forced marriages was rampant in the Sawla-Kalba-Tuna District.
According to her, some girls in the district had dropped out of school because they were allegedly forced into early marriages through no fault of theirs.
“If I am introduced to such forced marriage, I would resist because if I marry at this stage, it is bad and it would ruin my future; infact how can a girl at my age marry an old man”, she questioned.
The Ibis Programme Director of Education, Mr Zakaria Sulemana, stated that “we have countless examples of very brilliant boys and girls who unfortunately had to abandon school because they did not have the necessary skills and attitudes to enable them to fight the bad influences of life”.
The director further indicated that his outfit cherished education of girls because they know an educated woman was an asset to her family, community and to the whole country and that was why they always looked for innovative strategies for making girls go to school and remain there and endeavour to complete the programme.
The Regional Desk Officer for NGOs at the GES, Mr Dramani Dari, noted that it was important for NGOs to support the GES in its girls’ education clinic programme since the GES was constrained by lack of funding.

RIGHT TO DREAM, VODAFONE ON TALENT HUNT IN TAMALE (PAGE 29, SEPT 8, 2010)

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A CHARITY organisation, the Right to Dream, in collaboration with Vodafone Ghana has embarked on a tour to identify sports talents among underprivileged children in the Tamale metropolis.
The tour is part of a three-year sponsorship package signed between the two organisations in March this year, with the aim to identify and support up to 20 children between the ages of 11 and 14 to realise their full potentials in soccer and education.
Briefing media practitioners in Tamale, the Media Relations Officer of Vodafone, Mr Gordon Wellu, said the package included the provision of Vodafone souvenirs, media awareness, decoration of football pitches with Vodafone paraphernalia and provision of items such as mobile phones, SIM cards and T-shirts for awards.
According to him, Vodafone shared the same vision with the organisation, hence, his outfit’s decision to support that good course.
The Head of Recruitment of the Academy, Mr Joe Mulberry, said the beneficiary children would be offered opportunities to develop their football talents and offered a five-year education scholarship.
According to Mr Mulberry the academy was established in 1999 and had so far produced 88 children who were pursuing higher education as well as playing their professional football in Europe and the United States of America.
He disclosed that five of the second generation of players were from Tamale, while two players from the Metropolis were among the fourth generation of players trained by the academy.
Mr Mulberry acknowledged that Tamale was very “strong in Ghanaian football and we are pleased with the products from the Metropolis so far”.
As part of the tour, awards were given to both players and teams who excelled following a football match played at one of the training pitches at the Tamale Sports Stadium.
For the under 12,the Republicans and the Young Goldfields were given 200 Ghana cedis cash each for emerging winners at the finals of the competition. Each player of the two teams also took home a Vodafone SIM card, five Ghana cedis worth of credit and Vodafone T-shirt.
The runners-up took home 100 Ghana cedis cash, and each player took home one SIM card, 2 Ghana cedis worth of Vodafone credit and a T-shirt.
The best players for the under 12 and under 14 teams received mobile phones, SIM cards and 5 Ghana cedis worth of credit.

SAGNARIGU LACKS SOCIAL FACILITIES (PAGE 29, SEPT 8, 2010)

2010-09-07T03:54:00.000-07:00

RESIDENTS of Sagnarigu-Dungu, a peri-urban community in the Tamale metropolism say they can no longer bear the negative impact of lack of potable water and sanitation facilities in the area.
The non-availability of the two facilities, according to the residents, is creating serious marital problems, health and economic challenges in the community.
A spokesperson for the area, Mr Dahaman Nayi, told the Daily Graphic for instance, that due to the fact that women walk long distances in the night in search of water at a nearby dam, some of their husbands had been suspecting them of infidelity and engaging in prostitution.
He explained that the situation most often resulted in petty squabbles among married couples and indicated that most men were not comfortable with the situation no matter the explanation the women gave to their respective husbands.
At a forum dubbed “Poverty Hearing”, organised by WaterAid and New Energy, both non-governmental organisations under the End Water Poverty Campaign, Mr Nayi together with some residents, who attended the function, complained about a myriad of problems in the community.
The area has a population of about 2,114 with farming and trading as the predominant occupation of the people.
The women mostly engage in sheabutter production and trading, while the men cultivate rice.
“Every day we quarrel with our wives when they return from fetching water; in fact there is no trust among married couples and this is happening because our wives go for water in the night and they do not come back in time to sleep.”Mr Nayi pointed out.
According to some residents, some of the women because they carry big and heavy basins filled with water on their heads daily, are allegedly contracting a strange disease that seem to be similar to mental illness.
“Our women are usually bitten by snakes when they go to fetch water and this untreated water is affecting the health of our community members” they stressed.
A pregnant woman narrated her harrowing experience, claiming that she walked at least four kilometers everyday to fetch water and had to defecate anywhere she deemed fit because there was no toilet facility in the area.
Some old women in the community also complained of joining the younger women to look for water although they claimed they were too old for that.
“The issue is that, we want pipe borne water since it has been difficult for us to get boreholes that are high-yielding”Mr Nayi further emphasised.
The overall objective of poverty eradication is to empower the communities to advocate improvement in their socio-economic lives.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report for 2006,open defecation is prevalent in all the ten regions. The report further indicated that while the national average is 24 per cent, the practice is most widespread in the Upper East Region with about 82 per cent of the people without any form of latrine, followed by the Upper West Region with about 79 per cent and the Northern Region 73 per cent.
Although Tamale is a metropolis, it is still vulnerable in terms of adequate potable water supply, particularly to some of the peri-urban communities. During the dry season, most of the water bodies dry up while the already poor underground water level falls, making boreholes and wells to dry up.
The Communications and Campaigns Officer, Madam Janet Dabire, observed that the complaints from residents of the area were “advocacy tools for us which we will use for high level meeting, like the Millennium Development Goal plus 10 Summit in New York this month”.
She said that her outfit and New Energy intended to provide a pipe water system to the community in the near future but stressed that the government and the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly should put the necessary structures in place to facilitate the provision of potable water and sanitation facilities in the community.

FLOODS SUBMERGE 65 WEST GONJA COMMUNITIES (BACK PAGE, SEPT 7, 2010)

2010-09-07T03:43:00.000-07:00

SIXTY-FIVE communities in the West Gonja District of the Northern Region have been submerged by floods due to the spillage of the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso and torrential rains in the region.
No casualty has so far been recorded but 339 houses have been destroyed leading to the displacement of more than 175 people.
Additionally, 6,000 acres of farmland and some livestock have been washed away by the floods.
The West Gonja District Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Madam Habiba Alhassan, expressed shock at the level of destruction caused by the floods after touring the affected areas.
Communities like Mankaragu and Lukula have been completely cut off from the rest of the region and the people now use canoes to reach the nearest health facility at Sandema, which is about five kilometres from the two towns.
During the district co-ordinator’s tour, 11 cattle, nine goats and some guinea fowls were found drowned in the floods and about 2,000 acres of farmland at Mankaragu alone, containing maize, millet groundnut and guinea corn, were washed away.
The situation is very critical in the district, which is usually referred to as “overseas” and surrounded by a lot of streams.
Madam Alhassan took the opportunity to entreat the government, development partners and non-governmental organisations to help normalise the situation by donating relief items to the people.
The West Mamprusi District NADMO Co-ordinator, Mr James Braimah, also had his share of the trouble as Kabori community in his district had also been submerged following the floods but he could not readily disclose the number of people affected and properties destroyed.
According to him, a couple in that community was made homeless as their house collapsed.
Mr Braimah indicated that the couple are currently being housed at the community’s Area Council.
He stated that a number of farm produce that were recently harvested by the people had been washed away by the floods.
Meanwhile, the Northern Regional Co-ordinator of NADMO, Alhaji Abdulai Silimboma, accompanied by some officials from his outfit, is currently touring the affected communities in the region.
Last week, two farmers who failed to heed the advice of the NADMO not to visit their farms got drowned in the White Volta when they were returning from their farms in a small boat.

POLICE SEARCH FOR 10 SUSPECTED ROBBERS (PAGE 3, SEPT 4, 2010)

2010-09-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

THE Police at Buipe in the Central Gonja District in the Northern Region have mounted a thorough search for 10 suspected armed robbers who allegedly ambushed three vehicles on the Tamale-Buipe highway early yesterday and robbed the passengers after shooting and wounding six of them.
The robbers took away various sums of money from passengers and bolted with the booty.
The Buipe District Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Filbert Zubaviel, who confirmed the story, told the Daily Graphic that the victims were currently receiving treatment at the Tamale Teaching Hospital.
According to the Commander, the patrol team had just entered Buipe at the time of the robbery when they heard a loud sound like the blast of a vehicle tyre.
He explained that the team decided to check on it and before they could get to the scene, the robbers, sensing danger, fled into a nearby bush.
ASP Zubaviel said the robbers stopped and robbed passengers on board a KIA cargo truck, and two other commercial vehicles, including a bus.
The robbers, the commander noted, fired shots to deflate the tyres of the KIA truck before robbing its passengers.
They also fired into a commercial bus, injuring six passengers on board before robbing them of their monies.
ASP Zubaviel said the victims were first rushed to the Buipe Clinic but there were no medical personnel to attend to them and so the police quickly organised for them to be transferred to the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

INTENSIFY EDUCATION CAMPAIGN ON HEALTH CARE DELIVERY (PAGE 35, SEPT 1, 2010)

2010-09-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

THE Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba has charged the Ghana Coalition of non-governmantal organisations (NGOs) engaged in health activities to embark on intensive education campaigns in the region to disabuse the minds of people with negative beliefs that hinder effective health care delivery.
He said efforts should be made to change the mindset of some people in the area who held certain beliefs about the potency of the national immunisation programmes.
Mr Mabengba said this at the 2010 annual general meeting of the coalition in Tamale. It was on the theme: “Tackling childhood immunisation and unsafe abortions —towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals 4&5.”
The participants discussed issues such as district level engagement with the public health sector, abortion law, sustainability of the coalition and strategic plan for 2011 and 2015.
The minister stressed, “I am aware that certain beliefs held about the potency of immunisation of our children is a major setback to our eradication efforts of some childhood diseases such as polio”.
According to him, such a situation posed a serious challenge to all partners in ensuring that the target of achieving the MDG 4 by the year 2015 was guaranteed.
Mr Mabengba entreated the coalition to complement the efforts of the Ghana Health Service to ensure effective health care delivery in the region.
The National Co-ordinator of the coalition, Mr Samuel Boakye, briefed the participants on the activities of the organisation.
He announced that the coalition received financial support from the United Nations AIDS to promote the integration of stigma reduction into member organisations’ HIV and AIDS activities.
According to him, the management of the coalition would ensure that it stayed focus and worked towards achieving its set targets.
The Northern Regional Director of the National Population Council (NPC), Chief Issahaku Amadu, said prevention and management of unsafe abortion included sexuality education at all levels, young people making conscious efforts to abstain from premarital sex or unprotected sex.
“Prevention of unintended pregnancy is far better than engaging in abortion whether safe or unsafe” he stressed.
Chief Amadu observed that women and girls resorted to unsafe abortion to prevent significant persons from detecting the pregnancy, as well as inadequate resources to maintain and effectively manage full term pregnancy.

SET UP AGRICULTURAL CREDIT FUND — NASHIRU (PAGE 35, SEPT 1, 2010)

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THE President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Mr Mohammed Nashiru has suggested the setting up of an Agricultural Credit Fund to address the challenges of agribusiness in the country, especially in northern Ghana.
He stated that when the fund was established, it would help address such problems as limited access to reliable and cheap credit facilities, high interest rates on credit facilities, cumbersome procedure on loan acquisition and little attention on financial institutions on credit provision to the agricultural sector, among other challenges.
Mr Nashiru made the suggestion in Tamale at a forum on promoting agribusiness development in Ghana.
The National Agribusiness Development Programme (NADEP) at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness of the University of Ghana, Legon, organised the event in collaboration with the Departments of Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics and Extension of the University for Development Studies (UDS).
Mr Nashiru stressed the need for the strengthening of the institutional framework for access to credit for agriculture.
He advocated that the government should avoid being signatories to treaties that adversely affected agriculture.
“Flexible procedure in loan acquisition is critical to agribusiness development; the need to reduce interest rates is equally important,” Mr Nashiru stated.
Touching on other challenges to agribusiness development, he stated that erratic weather patterns and inadequate resourced weather related institutions to predict weather patterns must be effectively addressed.
Mr Nashiru further explained that high illiteracy rate on the part of producers and international treaties that hindered agribusiness growth in Ghana were other challenges hindering the growth of the agribusiness sector.
The Head of the Department of Agribusiness Management and Finance of the UDS, Dr Richard Yeboah, mentioned loan recovery, political interference and the failure of loan applicants to give the right information about their business transactions, had discouraged many financial institutions from giving out loans.
He stated that as a way of addressing such challenges, the institutions had introduced a number of measures like credit with education, more field monitoring of credit facilities and the dependence on more organised groups introduced by non-governmental organisations.

59 MMDA'S TO FACE SANCTIONS — DAPAAH (PAGE 12, AUGUST 28, 2010)

2010-08-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

FIFTY-NINE out of the 138 district, municipal and metropolitan assemblies that failed to submit their reports covering the period 2001 to 2004 are likely to face sanctions.
The assemblies might lose future allocations of public funds to them and also face the law.
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee(PAC), Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, made this known in Tamale during the opening of a two-day public sitting of the PAC to hear reports of 21 district, municipal and metropolitan assemblies in the three northern regions, covering the period 2001 to 2005.
He further announced that the Auditor General’s report covering 2001 to 2004 identified such anomalies as disregard for laid down procedures, misuse of revenue, contract irregularities, failure to recover loans, procurement problems, overpayment and embezzlement issues.
He said the report detected that those anomalies led to the loss in revenue of 58 billion old Ghana cedis or (5.8 million new Ghana cedis).
Mr Dapaah observed that the hosting of the public sitting in Tamale “is historic because it is the first time the PAC is conducting its public sitting in the metropolis”.
He explained that the idea was to have the PAC’s public sittings close to the rural communities where the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies were located.
“Governments everywhere are enjoined to render account to the public regarding spending of public funds which are the tax- payer’s money” he pointed out.
He further stated that the failure of the government to render proper account could make the country’s citizens lose confidence in her resulting in confusion.
The chairman stated that although the current DCEs appearing before the PAC were not there at the time most of the transactions took place, they were required to be in a position to explain to the committee how the funds were spent.
The Head of Public Affairs in Parliament, Mr Jones Kugblenu, explained that “59 assemblies failed to answer their respective queries and as a result risk forfeiting any form of funding from government in the future”.
He observed that most of the assemblies rather spent so much on administrative purposes while others had their Internally Generated Funds (IGF) “sitting in the banks without utilising them for development purposes”.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, has meanwhile urged the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to expand its public sittings to include all the 20 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the region.
He noted that the current situation where only 21 district assemblies in the three northern regions appeared before it was not the best.

MAKE REALISTIC PROMISES TO FOOT SOLDIERS — REV NAAMEH (PAGE 12, AUGUST 28, 2010)

2010-08-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

THE Catholic Archbishop of Tamale, Most Reverend Philip Naameh, has entreated the leadership of political parties to make realistic and attainable promises to their respective foot soldiers.
In so doing, he charged the leadership to raise the socio-economic and political awareness levels in order to avoid internal party conflicts.
“We must focus on the promotion of political maturity on the part of foot soldiers,” he told the gathering at the Second Ghana Version of the World Youth Day Celebration in Tamale. It was on the theme “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life; blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God”. It was organised by the Ghana National Catholic Youth Council (GHANCYC). The programme attracted Catholic youth groups, as well as bishops all over the country.
The archbishop observed that there was the need to promote “positive criticisms and healthy competition among political parties”.
According to him, party members must be told that in governance, “it is not possible to have everything at the same time”.
He therefore, urged the youth in the Catholic Church to enter politics and act as agents of peace and harmony within the political environment.
The Most Revd Naameh stated that the Catholic Youth had a lot to offer the nation when they entered politics.
He entreated Catholics to share their wealth with the poor to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.
The archbishop stressed the need to avoid ethnocentrism in politics, saying “let us choose leaders based on merits and competence”.
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Ms Akua Sena Dansua, in a speech read on her behalf, said the youth should avoid any form of violence be it political, religious, chieftaincy or land litigation.
“The youth must demonstrate commitment and see themselves as agents of change that will champion the cause of peace, progress and prosperity wherever they found themselves” she stressed.

SPORTS TRAINING CENTRE FOR TAMALE (PAGE 43, AUGUST 16, 2010)

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A TRAINING centre to help identify and develop sports talents in northern Ghana is to be established in Tamale.
Football Players International (FPI), an international organisation based in Holland, is facilitating the project.
A spokesperson of a delegation from Holland, Mr Jawhari Baba-Duah, made this known when the team called on the Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, in Tamale.
According to him, the centre would also offer football players the opportunity of continuing their careers in Europe.
He stated that the delegation visited the metropolis to identify sports talents and assist local coaches to undergo training to raise the standard of local teams and players in northern Ghana.
“Furthermore, the FPI through the centre intends to promote peace building and provide alternative career opportunities for the people of the northern region,” Mr Baba-Duah stated.
Mr Asabigi expressed gratitude to the youth of Tamale for their tireless efforts to bring development partners home to support development efforts in northern Ghana.
He assured the delegation of the Regional Co-ordinating Council’s support in developing sports talents in the area.
Mr Asabigi told the delegation that Tamale was a fast growing city so they should endeavour to expedite work on the project to avoid encroachment by other estate developers.

SHEA INDUSTRY NEEDS TO BE REVAMPED (PAGE 43, AUGUST 16, 2010)

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THE shea industry is potentially a viable sector that could help eradicate poverty and improve on the quality of life of the people of northern Ghana.
However, over the years, little has been done by stakeholders in terms of policy, research and financial support to boost the sector.
It is estimated that Ghana produces 130,000 tonnes of shea nuts annually out of which 70,000 tonnes are used locally and 60,000 metric tonnes exported.
Additionally, about 45,000 tonnes are reported to be exported as raw nuts and 150,000 tonnes as butter.
The challenges that have bedevilled the sector over the years include low and fluctuating pricing, decades of neglect by policy makers, particularly successive governments, widespread suspicion and mistrust among actors in the system and inadequate information on the shea industry.
The present state of the industry shows clearly a policy and an institutional shortfall in the management of the sector.
There seems to be a consensus among stakeholders in the industry that shea requires a focussed institutional attention to grow on a sustainable basis.
Some stakeholders have on several platforms suggested the formation of a shea board to bring about the needed sustainability.
The Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition (GTLC), however, believes the formation of a shea board would require a review of existing regulation on shea, especially in ensuring increased research, guaranteed pricing and marketing.
A research conducted by the GTLC showed that there were serious challenges in research for improved varieties, inconsistent policy for the sector, difficulties of picking and processing by largely women’s groups and inadequate shea value chain.
It is worthy to note that attention to the development of the plant and all other activities to do with picking and adding value has not been enough and well directed to unveil the potentials of the crop.
A comprehensive policy that provides consistency for the development of the shea industry has been woefully inadequate.
There are indications that in the near future, the shea may not be available in commercial quantities.
A study has revealed that seven out of 10 baskets of charcoal come from the shea tree and another report by Action Aid Ghana shows that large tract of land in the Yendi Municipality on which shea trees abound were being cleared for the development of Jatropha plantations.
It has been observed that the incentive to protect shea trees by communities and persons involved in picking is undermined by low prices for shea nuts, little market opportunities for the nuts and butter as well as issues of ownership of the tree.
Persons and communities therefore exploit the tree for the economic benefits that it immediately provides without planned replacement. Replacement of old low yielding trees is largely non-existent.
It is important to note that gestation period of the tree is known to be between 25 and 30 years. Research efforts since the early 1980’s to reduce the gestation period seemed not to be yielding results.
If the shea tree should be attractive to local investors for the development of plantations, then better resources may have to be directed into research to produce shea varieties that are high yielding.
Shea trees are indigenous to Africa and grow wild throughout the vast West African Savannah Zone, stretching from Cameroon to Senegal and encompassing Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Shea trees may also be found further east in Uganda and Sudan.
Resistant to plantation cultivation, the shea tree thrives in the Savannah’s ever receding forests and on farms, where the trees are left to grow whenever land is cleared or left to fallow. Shea nuts are crushed to produce a thick yellow cream known as shea butter. An estimated 9.4 million shea trees presently thrive in Ghana, however between 70 and 80 per cent of the trees are considered old with declining yields.
It is significant to note that the timeliness of picking nuts is as important as handling, drying and then parboiling. The nuts could lose some value when any of these stages is not well done.
The practice for most of the pickers is to pick and gather at a location far from home. Stocks are gradually transported by head load for treatment and drying. The inaccessibility of most of the locations by vehicles as a result of bad roads, especially during the rainy season, compounds this situation.
Many nuts may begin to germinate or completely lost by the time they are transported. Therefore with the existing stock of trees, methods of collection, treatment and drying, the picker plays a central and critical role.
During a recent shea stakeholders meeting in Tamale, the Co-ordinator of the GTLC, Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, stressed the need for co-ordination of efforts in research, plantation development, maintenance of existing trees, to provide sustainable access and supply of shea nuts for domestic use and for export.
He also stressed the need for the setting up of a body with the mandate to co-ordinate those efforts to harness the potential of the tree, adding that that body must be established by government.

THINK TAN URGED TO ADDRESS NR FOOD INSECURITY (BACK PAGE, AUGUST 14, 2010)

2010-08-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

A Think Tank charged with addressing the challenges of food insecurity in northern Ghana has been inaugurated in Tamale.
The group, known as the Food for Life Think Tank, is made up of experts from the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), the Animal Research Institute, the University for Development Studies (UDS), the Irrigation Development Authority (IDA), CARE International, the Water Research Institute, the Forestry Commission, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.
It was initiated by the Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA) and Friendship Groups in Denmark (GV) under its Empowerment for Life (E4L) programme.
The Chairman of the GDCA, Professor Abubakari Al-Hassan, explained that the group would help co-ordinate, re-examine and reformulate previous strategies in the new context of climate change.
“Members will use their strong professional profile, network and links to stakeholder institutions to make the think tank a key player in the field and place food security and climate change adaptation high on the political agenda,” he pointed out.
According to him, as a counterpart to the group, a farmer forum group had been established in 10 different rural communities in the Yendi District to work towards developing a Food for Life strategy which would entail a review of existing data and the establishment of a resource centre.
Prof. Al-Hassan said the resource centre would comprise a library and a database of the existing data and actors, samples of relevant equipment, a demonstration of ideas and findings, relevant journals and materials from other stakeholders and would be open for public use as a learning centre.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Director-General of the Council for Scientific Research (CSIR), Dr Abdulai Salifu, said the effects of climate change included reduction in rainfall amounts, flooding, increase in temperature, with its attendant problems such as uncertainty in food production and food policy issues, worsening food insecurity, the widening of income gaps, stress on disaster management systems, among others.
He advised farmers to adopt such strategies as the cultivation of drought resistance crops and dry season gardening to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, noted that small-scale farmers in the region were far from securing an all-year round food supply, in spite of the many interventions being provided.
He announced plans by the government to establish a climate fund that would help mitigate the effects of climate change.
A member of the Council of State, Kpan-Naa Mohammed Baba Bawah, said in northern Ghana, environmental scarcity, occasioned by lowering amount of rainfall, had caused tremendous damage to human life through incessant conflicts in the quest for the domination of scarce existing land resources.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, urged the group to remain focused and collaborate effectively with all stakeholders to help address food insecurity problems in the north.

NEED FOR MORE TRAINED TEACHERS (PAGE 11, AUGUST 13, 2010)

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THE Northern Regional Director of Education, Mrs Elizabeth De-Souza, has stated that bridging the education gap between the north and south requires the churning out of a higher number of trained and committed teachers in Northern Ghana.
She observed that the high percentage of untrained teachers in the region and the north at large was partly to blame for the existing quality education gap between the north and south.
Mrs De-Souza stated this during an inaugural ceremony for 240 teacher trainees who were benefiting from the Untrained Teachers Diploma Basic Education (UTDBE) programme in Tamale.
It was sponsored by the Child Reach International Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in collaboration with the Alliance for Change in Education (ACE) programme of Ibis Ghana, an NGO.
The director lamented that her visits to some schools in the West Mamprusi and other districts in the region indicated that a significant number of teachers were not committed their work resulting in absenteeism and lateness to school.
What is happening in some schools is really sad and in spite of the provision of decent accommodation in some districts, most teachers have failed to be committed to their work as some of them leave the children to loiter about without any teachers guiding them, she noted.
Mrs De-Souza suggested to NGOs, district assemblies and other public spirited organisations who were sponsoring teacher trainees to institute formal agreement to compel the trainees to serve their respective communities as well as to be committed to their work.
“Until they are committed, their training would be meaningless and I must say that the whole of the north might not need their services again if they refuse to go back and serve their respective communities” she stressed.
“The Northern Region still has a high percentage of pupil teachers, she noted.
The Savelugu-Nanton District Director of Education, Madam Adriana Kandilige said there were 358 trained and 437 untrained teachers in the district.
That, she said included 121 community teaching assistants, adding that the district needed to organise a lot of training courses for them to enhance effective teaching and learning.
Madam Kandilige, however, expressed concern about the loss of contact hours, absenteeism, lateness to school and early closure of schools due to the lack of commitment on the part of teachers.
She noted that although the district was close to the Tamale Metropolis, it did not benefit significantly from the supply of trained teachers.
Madam Kandilige expressed regret that although the district assembly had constructed a good number of teachers’ quarters, most of the teachers in the area preferred to live in Tamale and commute daily to and from their respective schools in the district.
According to her, the teachers complained of lack of potable water and electricity in their communities.
She, therefore, announced that the district directorate of education had instituted an awards scheme to honour teachers who accepted postings to the district and stayed for at least two years.The ACE Co-ordinator, Mr Eric Kavaarpuo said the Gushiegu and Karaga districts have about 181 trained and 603 untrained teachers.
“It is our hope to double the number of trained teachers in Karaga and Gushiegu by 2013,” he stated.

TAMA COMPLETES SIX PROJECTS (PAGE 23, AUGUST 12, 2010)

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THE Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) and its partners have released more than GH¢1.6 million to undertake six projects in the Metropolis.
The projects, some of which have been completed and others ongoing, are the construction of a 20-seater toilet facility and a wall at Koblimahagu, a 20-seater toilet facility for the Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO), road markings and rumble strips at various locations within the Metropolis.
The rest are the completion of an Out Patients Department (OPD) building for the Tamale West Hospital, an ongoing construction of an assembly hall complex and repair of a grader belonging to the assembly.
The projects were funded with the TaMA’s share of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) under its District Wide Assistance Programme (DIWAP) and the Ghana Road Fund.
During a tour of the facilities, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Alhaji Abdulai Haruna Friday, urged the contractors to complete the ongoing projects as soon as practicable.
According to him, the assembly hall complex which was being funded by the DACF is estimated to cost GH¢1.3 million while the OPD for the Tamale West Hospital costs GH¢139,871. The OPD was funded by CIDA under its DIWAP programme.
He further explained that the 20-seater toilet facility located at Koblimahagu costs GH¢76,000 while the similar facility constructed at GHANASCO costs GH¢44,000. The toilets were constructed with funds from the DACF.
The MCE commended the TaMA’s development partners, like the CIDA, for supporting development projects in the three northern regions.
Alhaji Haruna later inaugurated the OPD that has six consulting rooms.
The facility would ultimately help ease congestion at the Tamale West Hospital’s old OPD.
The MCE cautioned residents, particularly squatters, against breaching the peaceful atmosphere around the new OPD and entreated management of the hospital to take good care of the facility.
The Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, Dr Bashiru Majeed, observed that the hospital faced such challenges as poor ventilation, congestion and inadequate space for both patients and health personnel on duty.
“Most of the health personnel usually hang around without offices due to the congestion; in fact, the new facility would help ease a lot of pressure on the few facilities at the hospital,” he pointed out.

POOR ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN GUSHIEGU WORRYING (PAGE 11, AUGUST 11, W010)

2010-08-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

AA GROUP of concerned trained teachers in the Gushiegu District of the Northern Region have expressed concern about the poor academic performance among students in schools in the area.
They blamed the situation partly on the lack of supervision, the recruitment of untrained teachers with the adoption of bad teaching methods and bribery and corruption among some education authorities in the area.
The teachers who pleaded anonymity stated this during an interaction with the Daily Graphic at Gushiegu.
They pointed out that some parents did not invest in their children’s education thereby resulting in the poor performance of the school pupils.
In the communities, some parents do not value education and so do not care what their wards do during or after school hours, while they do not encourage their children to learn after school and some of the kids have to fend for themselves, they lamented.
According to them “those untrained teachers can only teach the school pupils to sing and dance without teaching them how to read and write effectively”.
They denied some reports in the media that suggested that all teachers both trained and untrained were to blame for the poor academic performance among school children, stressing that “we the trained teachers are not to blame for such unfortunate trend in education in the area”.
The teachers further stressed that the current state of affairs could be addressed if the recruitment of trained teachers was encouraged and made to be more transparent.
They alleged that for transparency to prevail during the recruitment of teachers in the district, bribery and corruption should be avoided and those employed should be given their appointments based on merits.
The teachers equally suggested a thorough house-cleaning exercise within the office of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the district, to remove the rot in the system to pave way for the right things to be done.

RUMPUS BETWEEN MMT AND GPRTU IN TAMALE RESOLVED (PAGE 23, AUGUST 9, 2010)

2010-08-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

THE long-standing misunderstanding and rivalry between the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) and the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT) in the Tamale metropolis has been resolved.
This followed the establishment of a new bus terminal by the MMT near the Aboabu Timber market which started operating in June this year.
Until recently, both the GPRTU and the MMT operated from the Savelugu lorry station located within the Central Business District of the Metropolis. The MMT’s relocation has eased congestion at the Savelugu lorry Park and enhanced the free flow of traffic at the station.
In May 2008, members of the GPRTU threatened to go on strike over what they described as “unfair and unhealthy competition” from the MMT.
The GPRTU also gave a one-week ultimatum to the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TAMA) to resolve the matter and bring sanity into the transport sector.
Among the arguments advanced by members of the GPRTU was the need for the MMT to reduce the “relatively high number of its buses plying the routes in the northern region.”
The new terminal, which is still being put into shape, can accommodate 150 buses.
Traders in the Metropolis, particularly the Aboabu area, are cashing in on the new terminal to improve on their sales as most of them have also relocated to the area to transact business.
The Northern Regional Manager of the Tamale Depot of the MMT, Mr Stephen Abukari, observed that there were such challenges as fencing of the terminal and getting the grounds prepared to befit its status as a new terminal.
According to him, the operation of the new terminal had helped to stop cases of theft that were being recorded at the former terminal within the Savelugu lorry station.
“The new terminal is spacious and there is enough ventilation and seats for passengers,” he noted.
Mr Abukari further explained that the new terminal had brought in a new lease of life into the company’s operations.
He intimated that the terminal had equally enhanced the company’s operations as it was now fully operating in all the districts of the region.
“Patronage has increased these few months and we are raking in more revenue as compared to the period when we were at the Savelugu lorry station,” he pointed out.
He indicated that the MMT in Tamale had a total staff strength of 254 and operated 70 buses out of which 25 had broken down.
The manager stated that the broken down buses had, to some extent, affected the MMT’s operations but added that the top management of the company was working round the clock to get the buses back onto the roads.
Touching on security at the new terminal, Mr Abukari intimated that a team of policemen had been detailed to be patrolling the terminal every day and “very soon this terminal would become the best in the metropolis.”
“The recent visit of the new Board Chairman, Mr Antwi Gyamfi, and the new Managing Director of the company, Mr Maxwell Anku, has reassured us that good things are coming in the near future,” the manager stated.

ADB, APEX BANK EXTEND CREDIT TO N. REGION FARMERS (PAGE 11, AUGUST 5, 2010)

2010-08-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and ARB Apex Bank Limited have extended GH¢4.5 million credit to 1,255 farming groups in the Northern Region under the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP).
The funds were provided under the value chain financing mechanism of the NRGP programme to the beneficiaries, comprising 7,910 males and 3,262 females, who are into the cultivation of maize, sorghum and soya bean.
At a forum on the NRGP approach to agricultural commodities value chain financing in Tamale, the National Programme Co-ordinator, Mr Roy Ayariga, explained that the NRGP had already provided “matching grants to subsidise equipment and machinery”.
The forum was aimed at bringing together key implementing partners to discuss the potential and challenges of the approach to help promote profitable agri-business for all actors along each commodity value chain.
The chain is made up of farmers, marketing companies, processing firms, input dealers, service providers and transporters.
“It is worthy to note that these funds come from the banks’ own resources because they have confidence in the value chain approach,” Mr Ayariga stated.
According to him, the rationale behind the NRGP was to assist the northern farmer to do profitable agri-business to overcome poverty and create wealth.
“Agricultural credit delivery is often problematic due to the risks associated with it and as such farmers always complain that the banks release funds late or that the approved loans are inadequate,” he observed.
The co-ordinator said in recognition of these constraints, the NRGP Value Chain Approach was aimed at establishing sustainable business linkages along the value chain of a particular commodity in such a way that the banks, input dealers, service providers, marketing companies and farmer groups were comfortable in doing business with each other.
He announced that the NRGP had also introduced “the cashless credit system” where the farmer groups, the banks and the facilitating agencies agree and certify input dealers and mechanisation service providers and marketing companies in advance”.
The Rural Financial Services Specialist, Mr Emmanuel Antwi, stated that one of the guidelines of the NRGP’s financing arrangements for farmer groups through the banks was to ensure that every farmer under the programme was issued with a business book which would contain the records of his or her business accounts and other vital information on his or her agricultural business activities.

VC SUGGESTS JOINT DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE (PAGE 23, JULY 28, 2010)

2010-07-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

THE Vice Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Haruna Yakubu has suggested the formation of a joint committee by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) and the UDS.
Such a committee, he said, could help address the development challenges facing the metropolis.
Prof. Yakubu made the suggestion during an interaction with the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Alhaji Abdulai Haruna Friday.
The interaction enabled the vice chancellor to introduce himself to the MCE. He was accompanied by the acting Registrar of the UDS, Mr. Sylvester Kuu-ire and the Director of Works and Physical Development of the UDS, Mr. Ambrose Tee.
Prof. Yakubu stated that development and tourism committees could be set up to help address the development challenges of the metropolis, as well as, attract tourists and investors into the area.
He observed that the committees when formed could make recommendations as to how to address the development challenges facing the Metropolis.
The vice chancellor equally observed that the sprawling metropolis was developing as a big marketing centre without massive development of residential areas.
He entreated the authorities at the TaMA to see the UDS as part of the metropolis and help come out with programmes that would enhance its development.
Prof. Yakubu stressed the need for the provision of electricity and other basic social amenities to university and its catchment areas.
“The UDS faces some challenges, including inadequate infrastructure such as access roads to open up the university”,the vice chancellor pointed out.
He further urged the MCE to help facilitate the construction of seven kilometres of access roads and provide 50 electric poles to enhance academic work at its central campus.
Prof. Yakubu observed, for instance, that although dormitories had been provided to support medical students of the UDS, the lack of access roads to link up the dormitories to the central administration of the UDS was one of the challenges facing both students and university authorities.
Alhaji Haruna for his part noted that the UDS and the TaMA were development partners and hoped such relationship would lead to the cross fertilisation of ideas towards the accelerated development of the metropolis.
According to the MCE, education was one tool that could be used to eradicate poverty in most suburbs of the metropolis.
“The assembly is looking at ways of bringing together institutions to accelerate development in the metropolis” he stated.

NUTRITION UNIT FOR KING'S VILLAGE MEDICAL CENTRE (PAGE 11, JULY 22, 2010)

2010-07-22T04:33:00.000-07:00

Malnutrition is the insufficient, excessive or unbalanced consumption of nutrients. According to the United Nations, malnutrition kills 10 children every minute. More than a quarter of children in developing countries are underweight and suffer disease because of their poor diet, and in some areas, almost half of all under-fives are malnourished.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) cites malnutrition as the gravest single threat to the world's public health. Improving nutrition is widely regarded as the most effective form of aid. Emergency measures include providing deficient micro-nutrients through fortified sachet powders such as peanut butter or directly through supplements.
Long-term measures include investing in modern agriculture in places that lack them, such as fertilisers and irrigation, which largely eradicate hunger.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warns that the slow progress in reducing nutritional problems among children means that several key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets may now be missed. According to Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF, "The lack of progress to combat malnutrition is damaging children and nations. Few things have more impact than nutrition on a child's ability to survive, learn effectively and escape a life of poverty".
The first MDG, agreed by the world's leaders, pledged to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015. For the MDG to be met, countries need to reduce rates of undernutrition by an average of 2.8 per cent a year.
To improve on the nutrition and health status of women and children in the Tolon-Kumbungu District of the Northern Region, the Australian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Billy Williams has inaugurated a GH¢37,723 Nutrition Centre at the King’s Village Medical Centre at Bontanga.
The centre, which is equipped with a storage facility for grains such as maize, Soya beans and groundnuts, as well as other facilities such as places of convenience and bath house, was financed by the Australian Government through its Direct Aid Programme (DAP).
In his inaugural address, Mr Williams observed that the project was a clear manifestation of existing relationship between Australia and Ghana.
He announced that a number of Ghanaian students had benefited from scholarship programmes this month and urged Ghanaians to take advantage of the many fellowship programmes put in place by his country for workers in the mining and agricultural sectors.
“The Australian High Commission is committed to projects that assist local community development; this is my first visit to the Northern Region and this opportunity will enable me to interact with the various communities where our projects are being implemented” Mr Williams stated.
The Project Manager, Dr Opoku Mensah, said King’s Village Ghana was a Christian organisation that is committed to addressing the fundamental needs of the rural poor. He said the organisation was into education, healthcare, water, sanitation, as well as the promotion of hygiene.
Dr Mensah entreated the Australian Government to help provide the King’s Village Medical Centre with a neo-natal intensive care unit and maternity home to help reduce infant and maternal mortality rates.
The District Director of Health Services, Madam Denisia Agong-Kaara, noted that the district recorded a malnutrition rate of 42 per cent among children and further explained that malnutrition affected children’s immune system and Intelligent Quotient (IQ).
Madam Agong-Kaara therefore, expressed gratitude to the Australian Government for providing the facility, which he said would ultimately enhance the nutritional status of children in the area.
The Tolon-Kumbungu District Chief Executive,Mr Idd-Manzah Mahama,pointed out that the district was deprived, as a bulk of the assembly’s expenditure that was mainly donor-driven went into providing educational and health infrastructure.
According to him, the district equally committed a significant portion of its resources into supporting tertiary students who hailed from the district.

HELP BRING UNITY TO NORTHER REGION (PAGE 67, JULY 19, 2010)

2010-07-19T05:28:00.001-07:00

THE General Manager (GM) in charge of Newspapers of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, has charged media practitioners in the three northern regions to help unite the people through their reportage, instead of dividing them.
He also reminded them that one of the key duties of a journalist was to ensure that the living conditions of rural people were ultimately improved.
Speaking at the first Northern Journalists Awards ceremony in Tamale, Mr Ayeboafoh said, “The media in any society are very crucial to its development agenda but at the same time they could equally be very destructive.”
He explained that the media were capable of producing both “good and evil”, depending on how meticulous and responsible media practitioners were in the performance of their duties.
The GM pointed out that although the media could make mistakes, just like any human institution, their mistakes were delicate, as they could cause mayhem and confusion in society.
“You must try not to incite one group against another and even if someone says something unpalatable that may cause confusion, it is the duty of the media to rather help build peace and a healthy northern Ghana,” he stressed.
According to him, the conflicts that had over the years plagued some communities in the north could be halted through a sustained effort by the media to promote advocacy and peace-building initiatives through their reportage.
He expressed regret that huge sums of money were being spent to maintain peace, while those funds could be channelled into development projects.
“Do the right thing so that when the history of the north is rewritten, the role the media played would be written in gold,” Mr Ayeboafoh advised.
The Managing Director of Flip Africa Media Consult-Ghana (FAMec, Ghana), Mr Tawfik Tikuma, said the awards were instituted to encourage media practitioners in northern Ghana to produce stories that would help change the negative perception about the north.
He indicated that the organisation of the awards encountered a number of challenges, including lack of the needed sponsorship.
He, however, expressed optimism that next year’s event, to be held in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region, might receive better sponsorship.
Mr Tikuma entreated public-spirited organisations and individuals to support the awards.
Those who won the awards were the Northern Regional Editor of the Daily Graphic in Tamale, Mr Zakaria Alhassan, who was adjudged the overall best journalist for the three northern regions at the first Northern Journalists Awards for 2009/2010; Mr Salifu Mohammed Nurudeen of the Tamale Office of the Daily Graphic won the most promising young journalist and best health journalist awards.
For the honorary awards category, Mr Mohammed Awal, Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) who was one-time Upper West Regional Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh, one-time Northern Regional Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Breda Atta-Quayson, first Deputy Editor of the Daily Graphic, and one time Regional Editor for Northern and Upper West regions, and Mr George Sydney Abugri of the Daily Graphic were among those honoured at the function.
Other awards were best Investigative and Environment journalist won by Edmond Gyebi of the Chronicle, Tamale, the best development journalist, which went to Mr Isaac Nongya of the Metro TV, Tamale while the best human rights awards went to Mr Stephen Zuori of the Daily Guide.
The programme was interspersed with musical performances and dance such as the Salsa and Jara. The event was organised by the FAMec, Ghana.

CREATE SPECIAL EDUCATION FUND FROM OIL REVENUE (PAGE 19, JULY 17, 2010)

2010-07-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

THE Deputy Registrar in charge of Academic Affairs of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Dr Adam B. T. Zakariah, has suggested to the government to set aside a greater percentage of the oil revenue as a special education fund.
Such a fund, he said, could be used to provide educational facilities and infrastructure in deprived regions, districts and local communities in order to ensure equitable distribution of educational opportunities.
Delivering a paper on the topic: “Overview of Ghana’s draft oil and gas revenue bill: Issues and challenges for policy advocacy,” Dr Zakariah noted that the fund could be run separately or as part of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETfund) with the aim of ensuring the overall quality of life of the people.
The deputy registrar stated this during a multi-stakeholder youth forum in Tamale on oil and gas policy advocacy and governance programme in Ghana.
It was on the theme: “Promoting citizens-government engagement for good governance in the management of Ghana’s oil and gas resources for sustainable national development; the role of civil society.”
The forum was organised by the Youth Action on Reproductive Order (YARO), a non-governmental organisation.
Dr Zakariah stressed the need for research and advocacy as a strategy to mount surveillance on the oil and gas industry to ensure that the required structures, including legal and financial regulations, were rigidly adhered to.
“I advocate for a strong oil watch that should include research into operations, gains and disbursement of the oil funds and the effect of the oil revenue on the quality of life of the citizenry,” he pointed out.
According to him, there was the need to work out strategies and mutually acceptable relationships and agreements between the government and the people within the geographical locations in Ghana where oil production was to take place.
“Where there is corruption, the gains of the oil revenue do not benefit the people and the national economy; the attraction to oil production by corruption is a very disturbing phenomenon,” Dr Zakariah observed.
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr San Nasamu Asabigi, called on the youth in northern Ghana to pursue oil and gas courses in order to take advantage of the oil and gas opportunities.
“The government is committed to ensuring that the youth benefit from activities in the oil and gas industry through participation, ownership, operations, control and management of the oil sector,” Mr Asabigi stated.
The Executive Director of YARO, Mr Hajei Benin, announced that the organisation and the Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme had embarked on a series of policy education and advocacy programmes for the three northern regions.
He explained that the fora sought to create a platform for the youth and civil society groups to participate in the ongoing discussions on the emerging oil and gas industry by articulating the views of the youth.

PROJECT TO INCREASE MANGO PRODUCTION UNDERWAY (PAGE 19, JULY 6, 2010)

2010-07-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

OVER 2,500 farmers in five regions are to cultivate about 6,000 acres of mangoes in commercial quantities for export.
The project, estimated at GH¢52 million, is being financed by the Export Development and Investment Fund (EDIF).
The beneficiary regions are Northern, Upper East, Upper West and parts of Brong Ahafo and Volta.
In all, 30 districts in the beneficiary regions are benefiting from the project.
It is envisaged that in the next five years, 20,000 acres of mango plantations would have been developed, with about 24,000 metric tonnes of mangoes produced for processing locally to yield GH¢8 million in revenue.
Inaugurating the project at Bole, one of the beneficiary districts, at the weekend, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hannah Tetteh, intimated that the support was part of the government’s strategy to improve on agricultural productivity to support industrial production in order to create wealth for the country and its citizens.
According to her, the government wanted to develop non-traditional export commodities as an alternative source of income and that the EDIF was introduced to effectively help finance the development of export commodities.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, said the EDIF intervention had created jobs for more than 200 exporters and 300 farmer groups in the non-traditional export sector.
“The mango programme in northern Ghana has a bright future because the climatic conditions here are similar to those in Burkina Faso and Mali, which are by far ahead in terms of production, processing and marketing on both the local and the export markets,” he noted.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbenba, said the project was a viable one that was worth undertaking and called on the beneficiary farmers to put in their best to contribute meaningfully to the growth of the sector.
A Spokesperson for the Kintampo Mango Farmers Association, Mr Kwasi Etu-Bonde, expressed gratitude to the government for the project and urged the management of the EDIF intervention to efficiently supply all farm inputs to yield the desired results.
He further suggested that the EDIF board should help provide the beneficiary farmers with inputs such as sheds, motorcycles and accommodation facilities for farm attendants, as well as storage facilities.
The Bole District Chief Executive, Alhaji Seidu Sampson, announced that the Kicheto Mango Farmers Association at Bole was expected to cultivate 200 acres of mangoes.
He further announced that the association had been provided with GH¢296,000 to cover the cost of mango seedlings, stamping, clearing, ploughing, harrowing and pegging of the land.

NEW ANGLICAN BISHOP FOR TAMALE (PAGE 36, JULY 5, 2010)

2010-07-06T04:16:00.002-07:00

A Member of the Council of State for the Upper East Region, Very Rev. Dr Jacob Ayeebo, has been elected the new Bishop for the Anglican Diocese of Tamale.
He replaces the outgoing Bishop, Rev. Emmanuel Arongo, who is going on retirement this year.
Speaking to media practitioners shortly after the announcement was made at the Anglican Church at Tishegu, a suburb of Tamale, the Very Rev. Dr Ayeebo thanked the congregation for the confidence reposed in him.
He acknowledged that expectations among the congregation were high and that although there were challenges, he was committed to ensuring that the church’s activities went on well.
“We need to achieve the objectives of the church collectively and with commitment and sacrifice; I am personally prepared to sacrifice, and I have the zeal for the job” the Very Rev. Dr Ayeebo noted.
He pointed out that the work of a Bishop was a challenging one because “you are expected to live above reproach”.
“I know I have challenges ahead but I believe sincerely that with your support and prayers the church would grow” he told the congregation.
The Bishop , who is also the Executive Director of the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organisation (ADDRO) in Bolgatanga, said his vision was to expand the Gospel of Jesus Christ both spiritually and physically.
He was ordained a priest in 1989 and holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Missiology, Master of Arts in Development and Mission Studies, Bachelor of Arts (BA Hons) in Theology and Ministry, Diploma in Theology and Counselling.
He is the immediate past Presiding Member of the Bawku West District Assembly and the immediate past Chairman of the Bawku Naaba Educational Endownment Fund.
Born on July 1, 1960, the Very Rev. Dr Ayeebo is married with four children.
He hails from Yelwoko in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region.
The Bishop has baptized over 1,000 people in the Anglican Church as well as opened six branches of the church in the Upper East Region.

TAMALE POLY ASSISTS KPALSI (PAGE 36, JULY 5, 2010)

2010-07-06T04:16:00.001-07:00

THE Tamale Polytechnic has donated GH¢1,250 to the chiefs and people of Kpalsi, a suburb of the metropolis to support a community library project in the area.
The money would enable the community to provide facilities such as ceiling fans, a desk top computer and a printer as well as provide training for key staff to manage the library.
The Rector of the Polytechnic, Alhaji Dr Yakubu Seidu Peligah, who presented the money to the Kpalsi Chief, Naa Yakubu Alhassan, at a short ceremony in Tamale said the gesture was part of the social responsibility programme of the polytechnic.
He explained that three months ago, the community appealed to the authorities of the polytechnic to support them to establish a community library to encourage reading among the youth in the area.
The rector commended the chief and his elders for initiating such a project and entreated other communities to emulate such self-help initiatives as a way of accelerating the development of deprived communities.
The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the polytechnic, Mr Mohammed Aziz, observed that the governing council of the polytechnic was very “enthusiastic about supporting communities in the polytechnic’s catchment area as a policy”.
According to him, the Kpalsi community was one of the peaceful areas in Tamale, and that it was important for the authorities of the polytechnic to support them.
“This gesture would also encourage both parents and schoolchildren in the area to invest in education for the benefit of the society at large” he stated.
The Kpalsi-Naa for his part thanked the Polytechnic for the gesture, and expressed the hope that other public-spirited individuals and organisations would support the development agenda of the community.

STUDENTS, ZOOMLION CLEAN UP TAMALE TEACHING HOSPITAL (PAGE 38, JULY 5, 2010)

2010-07-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

AS part of efforts to complement the President’s Initiative to keep cities clean, members of the Great Commission Movement of Ghana (GCMG) in collaboration with the Worldwide Students Network (WSN) in the United States and Zoomlion Ghana Limited, cleaned up the compound of the Tamale Teaching Hospital.
The members cleared choked gutters and swept the premises of the hospital.
The Ghana Project Co-ordinator of GCMG, Mr Nelson Ahiataku, told newsmen in Tamale that his outfit and the WSN were ministries of “campus crusade for Christ international which is currently serving in 204 countries worldwide”.
According to him, the organisations had a responsibility towards the society and communities.
“Our motivation for embarking on this exercise is to endorse our President’s Initiative to keep our cities clean” he observed.
Mr Ahiataku explained that his outfit was basically “presenting Jesus Christ as the greatest role model the World has ever known in cultivating and living lasting values of moral integrity, character transformation, promoting and maintaining peace in our societies”.
The WSN Team Co-ordinator, Mr Ross Olson, said the exercise was part of measures to build bridges in northern Ghana.
He observed that the people of Tamale were hospitable and friendly.
“There is happiness here which we do not have in the US; infact, there is so much joy and hospitality in Tamale”, Mr Olson noted.
Later, Mr Ahiataku on behalf of the organiszations made a cash donation ofGH¢400 to the Children’s Ward of the Hospital.
The Environmental Health Officer, Madam Bentu Salisu thanked the organisations for the gesture and hoped other public-spirited individuals and organisations would emulate the gesture.

DEPRIVED COMMUNITIES RECEIVE AID UNDER LEAP (PAGE 22, JULY 1, 2010)

2010-07-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

EIGHTEEN thousand one hundred and forty households in 210 deprived communities in the Northern Region have been provided a total of GH¢544,200 under the second phase of the Emergency Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme.
The beneficiary communities are in the East and West Mamprusi and Gonja Districts .
The Department of Social Welfare and the National Social Protection Unit of the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare organised the distribution of the resources.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Tamale, the Deputy Director of Child Rights Promotion and Protection of the Department of Social Welfare, Madam Joanna Mensah, said each household received GH¢30 as a relief package.
According to her, the package was meant to support the worst affected households due to the 2009 floods.
“We are looking at the very poor in emergency situations and to see how to bring immediate relief to them,” she stressed.
Madam Mensah explained that the funds were from the Government of Ghana, and that a monitoring and evaluation team had been put in place to identify those who would need to be rolled into the regular LEAP programme and the complementary services.
She said the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) collaborated with the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare and the Department of Social Welfare to introduce the programme.
Madam Mensah stressed the need for intensive public education and community engagement in discussions to make people understand the need for them to move upland along flood prone areas to avoid disasters.

COTTON FARMERS GET SPECIAL PACKAGE (PAGE 67, JUNE 28, 2010)

2010-06-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

THE government has made available GH¢5 million to support cotton farmers in northern Ghana to revamp the ailing cotton industry.
The package includes GH¢3.5 million direct support, which covers land preparation and provision of seeds and fertilisers, and GH¢1.5 million to be used as general subsidy.
The Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, who made this known when he launched a cotton support programme in Tamale on Saturday, said the intervention would increase cotton yield to about 10,000 metric tonnes, with about 4,500 metric tonnes of lint.
By the end of this year, the industry is expected to generate more than $8 million in income.
Mr Mahama said the programme would cover a significant number of the 60,000 cotton farmers in the three northern regions, indicating that in the next four years all the beneficiary farmers would be covered.
The Vice-President said support would be extended to private cotton companies and other stakeholders, adding that “the success of the current support will determine how the government will progress”.
He urged farmers to take advantage of the intervention and start ploughing the land for cultivation, stressing that “the money is ready. Don’t wait for it, go ahead”.
Mr Mahama said the vision of the government was to ensure that Ghana became a net exporting country in all sub-sectors of agriculture, adding that it had made significant strides in that direction and was likely to achieve 100,000 metric tonnes of maize surplus this year.
The Vice-President said rice importation had reduced considerably from 500,000 metric tonnes to 400,000 metric tonnes this year and expressed the hope that more local rice production would drastically reduce the importation.
For his part, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, noted that the golden age of prosperity in the Northern Region occurred in the 1970s and since then no massive investment in the rice and cotton industries had taken place.
According to him, the dug-out dams built in the 1960s had never seen any rehabilitation, making them easily washed away or silted.
The regional minister stated that the north was struggling to produce sorghum to meet the demand of the breweries, which stood at about 6,000 metric tonnes.
Mr Mabengba expressed the hope that the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) would become the vehicle for transforming northern agriculture and the general environment of the area.
He called on the people of the region to turn the seven months of dry season which, hitherto, had been a season of “indolence, hunger and frustration which breed anger, intolerance and violence”, into seasons of productivity and plenty.
He lauded the launch of the cotton season and said it was in recognition of the pivotal role the private sector could play in fostering accelerated economic development and employment creation.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mahama Ayariga, lamented the inability of tomato farmers to produce enough to meet the needs of the Northern Star Tomato Factory at Pwalugu.
He said the government was working with all the stakeholders in the cotton industry to design a framework to address their problems.
He called for commitment, honesty and the zeal to direct the inputs for the purposes they were intended for.
The National Chairman of the Cotton Farmers Association of Ghana, Abdul-Rahman Mohammed, said low world market prices and high interest rates had been the bane of the industry.
He commended the government for the package and advised his colleague farmers against the diversion of farm inputs.

FDB WARNS AGAINST UNCERTIFIED DRUGS (PAGE 42, JUNE 24, 2010)

2010-06-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

THE acting Zonal Officer of the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) in Tamale, Mr Gorden Akurugu, has cautioned the public against the use of uncertified Chinese drugs particularly those purported to boost libido in both men and women.
He noted that the proliferation of such fake drugs on the Ghanaian market had caused deaths among some users.
Mr Akurugu stated this at a meeting in Tamale to sensitise stakeholders and the public to the consumption of unwholesome and unregistered products that are on the Ghanaian market.
The officer cited an instance where a fake Chinese drug was sold to an unsuspecting couple that eventually resulted in the death of the man.
He, however, intimated that the FDB in collaboration with the security agencies had investigated the matter and those behind it were arrested and prosecuted.
Mr Akurugu explained for instance that the public must be vigilant and report to the FDB, individuals who went on air claiming they had medicines that could cure various illnesses.
“The Board is fully committed to its mandate of ensuring the safety, efficacy and quality of food, drugs, cosmetic, household chemical and medical device,” he said.
He further stressed that his outfit had expanded its activities, saying “key areas of great concern to the board are the number of unregistered products currently on the market”.
“Consumers should take the initiative to complain to the manufacturer and ask questions about their products; consumers must also exercise their ability to make a choice by refusing to purchase unwholesome food, counterfeit and substandard products,” Mr Akurugu stated.
He therefore stressed the need for concerted efforts to develop a safety risk-based approach that strengthens effective regulation in Ghana.
“Local manufacturers and importers must assist the Board in ensuring the safety of their products and re-establishing of consumer confidence by collaborating with the FDB to ensure the implementation of the appropriate safety and quality systems,” he pointed out.
The Head of Food Safety Unit of the FDB in Accra, Mr Sylvester Oteng Kyei, cautioned against putting out adverts that had not been approved by the Board.
He noted that handling of meat in the country was a major challenge as many people seemed to disregard the need for the maintenance of hygienic conditions.
“If you patronise an expired product and unwholesome product you do so at your own risk,” he warned.

IMPROVED SEEDS FOR YILONAYILI FARMERS (PAGE 22, JUNE 22, 2010)

2010-06-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

FARMERS at Yilonayili, a suburb of Tamale, have been provided with improved rice seeds, fertilisers and other farming inputs to enhance rice production in the area.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Famine Fund Rice Project provided funds for the seeds. The seeds were part of the 120 tonnes, valued at GH¢120,000, distributed earlier to farming communities in the three northern regions.
The USAID Project Co-ordinator, Dr Wilson Dogbe, made this known at a seed fair at Yilonayili to distribute the seeds to beneficiary farmers in the area.
He said the beneficiaries were being linked to agro-input dealers to access rice seed and fertilisers at subsidised prices.
The fair was aimed at boosting rice production through increased farmer access to rice seed, technology, fertiliser and market.
Dr Dogbe stated that the seed fair was a follow-up to the two-year Emergency Rice Initiative (ERI) project being implemented in four West African countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal.
According to him, the ERI project started last year and was supposed to boost rice production in 10,000 farm households in each participating country.
“Domestic rice production is characterised by poor farmer access to production factors like improved seeds, technology for rice production, fertiliser and credit; domestic rice production is trailing far behind demand and stands at about 30 per cent of demand,” he observed.
Dr Dogbe further stated that plans were far advanced to reach out to 20,000 farmers with rice production videos by the end of 2010.
The Northern Regional Co-ordinator of the ERI, Dr Ibrahim Atokple, said the objectives of the ERI programme was to boost total domestic rice production in Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal by about 30,000 tonnes of paddy rice with a current market value of about $21 million.
He explained that the seed fair would enable farmers to source vital inputs at the right time during each production season.
“In terms of yield, over 90 per cent of the farmers realised more than 100 per cent increase, harvesting between 15 and 20 bags of paddy rice per half an acre plot of farmland," he stated.
Dr Atokple said this year, the ERI was targeting 6,000 farmers, including those from Yilonayili.

'TAP POTENTIAL OF SHEA-NUT (PAGE 43, JUNE 21, 2010)

2010-06-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

Story: Vincent Amenuveve, Tamale
PARTICIPANTS in a stakeholders meeting on unleashing the potentials of the shea nut industry have called for effective collaboration between research institutions, universities and farming groups to fully tap the potential of the crop.
They noted, for instance, that issues such as reducing the gestation period of the plant and enforcing bye-laws against indiscriminate bush burning in order to protect the shea nut trees were critical to the survival of the industry.
The participants were drawn from farming groups, research institutions and the Produce Buying Company (PBC).
The meeting was aimed at sharing findings of a report on “unleashing the shea potentials” with stakeholders. It was also to initiate a broad-base campaign on shea, as well as facilitate a platform for progressive discussions on the industry.
The Ghana Trade Livelihoods Coalition (GTLC) organised the event.
The Deputy Executive Director of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana at Akyem Tafo in the Eastern Region, Dr Francis Kofi Oppong, emphasised the need for “domestication of the shea tree with the view to reducing its gestation period.”
According to him, one of the mandates of the Cocoa Research Institute was to help reduce the gestation period of the plant and commended the University for Development Studies (UDS) for making giant strides in that area.
Presenting key findings of the report, the Coordinator of the GTLC, Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, stated that the document revealed serious challenges in research for improved varieties, inconsistent policy for the sector, difficulties of picking and processing by women groups and inadequate shea value chain.
He said other problems that had bedevilled the industry included low and fluctuating pricing, decades of neglect by policy makers, especially government, widespread suspicion and mistrust among actors in the system, as well as inadequate information on the plant.
“The industry is a very vibrant one though little has been done in terms of policy, research and support to boost it. It could help eradicate poverty and improve the livelihoods of people in northern Ghana," Mr Akalbila further stated.
He suggested, among other things, the need to “domesticate the plant while ensuring that pickers and processors were provided with equipment.”
The co-ordinator further stressed the need for clearly defined educational campaigns and ensuring that adequate funding and transportation were provided for research purposes and conveying the nuts from farming centres to processing areas.

SAVELUGU-NANTON TO BECOME INDUSTRIAL HUB OF NR (PAGE 43, JUNE 21, 2010)

2010-06-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Story: Vincent Amenuveve, Savelugu
THE Savelugu-Nanton District is to become one of the industrial hubs of northern Ghana by 2025. The district, which is located along the Tamale-Bolgatanga road, is about 15 minutes drive from the Northern Regional capital, Tamale.
The strategic location of the district and its nearness to the Tamale Airport requires that the area be face-lifted to contribute to the industrial growth of the region.
To that effect, the district has been selected as one of the six pilot areas for the implementation of the new planning system for Ghana. Under the 15-year Spatial Development Framework (SDF) of the district, the area would become the spatial planning element of Medium Term Development Plans (MTDPs) aligned with regional and national planning policies.
Under the programme, stakeholders including developers, government, utility companies, communities and individuals will help create a congenial atmosphere for accelerated development of the district.
The present policy of concentrating support on existing villages, diversifying agriculture from traditional methods in order to provide food security and providing basic village levels of infrastructure, health and education, is the basis for the initial period of the plan which covers five years.
Efforts will be concentrated on better road access to villages rather than regional connectivity or urban infrastructure.
In the next five years, the district’s development will be focused on making the area attractive to large-scale investors by ensuring that large tracts of land are available for investment. Already, Integrated Tamale Fruit Company (ITFC) has invested huge resources in mango cultivation in the district.
there are plans to establish food processing, packaging and distribution facilities at Savelugu.
Additionally, higher education and research for this type of agriculture will be expanded at Pong-Tamale.
Under the SDF, settlements such as Gushie, Diare and Pong-Tamale will be supported to grow to accommodate the increasing wage-based and more job-secured population.
At a recent workshop at Savelugu to inaugurate a draft paper on the SDF, the International Planning Expert, Dr Christopher Cripps said 90 per cent of the working population in Savelugu is engaged in agriculture with about 70 per cent being subsistence farmers.
According to him, commercial farmers constituted the remaining 30 per cent of the farmers with farm sizes between 20 and 120 acres per farm.
Dr Cripps further stated that agro-processing constituted the main industrial activity in the district and includes sheanut processing, groundnuts processing, cotton ginnery and rice processing. Others are carpentry, blacksmithing, dressmaking and fish processing.
He stated that trading and service activities employed only three per cent of the economically active population. This includes public servants and petty traders.
The expert mentioned a number of challenges that the SDF was expected to address.
They are low household incomes and food insecurity, high illiteracy rate and lack of education generally among the working population.
Emerging urban settlements such as Savelugu and Pong-Tamale are unplanned with little or no infrastructure. Other development challenges include high youth unemployment, high level of unskilled labour, unhealthy environmental conditions, lack of coverage of electricity in half of the communities in the district and dilapidated school and health facilities.
Dr Cripps further stated that such issues as reducing the percentage of households that run out of food by the second quarter of the year needed to be critically examined during the implementation of the SDF.
“There is the need to increase electricity coverage to 80 per cent of the district as well as improve feeder roads and extend fixed line services to the district,” he said.
According to him, access to potable water and sanitation facilities needed to be increased while making sure that all the six Area Councils were operational.
The Project Manager, Mr Alistair Blunt stated that there were major problems facing land use and spatial planning in the country.
He said the Land Use Planning Law was out-of-date based on the Town Planning Ordinance of 1945( Cap 84).
He said planning authorities were under-resourced, saying 69 out of 170 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) had professional land use and spatial planners.
Other challenges include poor linkage between planning and registration of plots, lack of a linkage between social and economic development policies and spatial plans, lack of adequate and up-to-date base maps.
Mr Blunt said the overall objective of the Land Use Planning and Management Project was to help the growth of the Ghanaian economy through the revival and modernisation of an effective land use planning and management system that facilitates the implementation of spatial and land use plans.

VRA DONATES SEEDLINGS FOR PLANTING ALONG RIVERS (PAGE 43, JUNE 21, 2010)

2010-06-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Story & picture: Vincent Amenuveve, Tamale
THE Volta River Authority (VRA) has donated 700 Mahogany seedlings to the Northern Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) for planting along river banks in three districts in the region.
The gesture is part of the VRA’s efforts to support the presidential special awareness of sanitation in the region.
The seedlings are to be planted in the Central Gonja, Yendi and Saboba Districts to check erosion along water bodies.
Presenting the seedlings, the Principal Natural Resources Officer of the VRA, Mr George Bamfour Morris, stated that unless something urgent was done to prevent indiscriminate felling of trees along river banks, the Akosombo Dam might face crisis in the near future.
He stated that sand particles and filth which engulfed water bodies due to human activity was not good enough for the turbines that turn to generate power.
Mr Morris therefore stressed the need for rigid enforcement of bye-laws to protect the country’s water bodies, saying: “Communities must also be educated to plant more trees to protect our water resources.”
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Magbengba, who received the seedlings, called for intensive education campaign against indiscriminate tree felling and sand winning along river banks.
The Regional Co-ordinator of the President’s sanitation campaign, Mr Justice Joshua Dawuni, thanked the VRA for the support.
He bemoaned the rapid depletion of forest cover along river banks as a result of farming activities and appealed to other public-spirited organisations to support the campaign to protect water bodies.

* Picture: Mr Justice Dawuni (in smock), Mr George Morris (in black suit, middle) and Mr Moses Magbenba (left), jointly inspecting the 700 seedlings donated by the VRA.

3 COMMUNITIES GET SOLAR-POWERED WATER SYSTEMS (PAGE 22, JUNE 18, 2010)

2010-06-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

SOLAR-POWERED and electro-mechanised water supply systems have been inaugurated for three deprived communities in the Central Gonja District in the Northern Region.
The facilities valued at GH¢280,000 are fitted with transmission and distribution pipelines and located at Buipe, Kegbripe and Mpaha.
They were provided jointly by the European Union (EU) and the United Nation’s Education Fund (UNICEF) under the UNICEF’s Integrated Approach to Guinea Worm Eradication Through Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in the Northern Region (I-WASH) programme.
The Central Gonja District Assembly, the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) and New Energy,a Tamale-based non-governmental organisation are the other partners of the project.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, the Regional I-WASH Project Management Team Leader, Mr Gilbert Dery, stated that the facilities would ultimately help to prevent the outbreak of water borne diseases, particularly guinea worm.
He said last year,the Central Gonja District alone recorded 62 per cent of incidence of the guinea worm as against zero this year, and it was envisaged that the provision of such facilities would help forestall the recurrence of the disease.
He further explained that rehabilitation of the electro-mechanised Buipe Small Town Water Supply System was completed in 2006 with support from Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) under the management of a seven-member Water and Sanitation Development Board.
According to him, the remaining two facilities at Kegbripe and Mpaha were solar powered.
The facilities will provide potable water to a total of 22,667 people with 6,700 of them being children in the three beneficiary communities.
“Prior to the installation of the water systems, the communities were relying on water from such unsafe sources as dams and dug dugouts,”Mr Dery stated.
The Head of the EU Delegation in Ghana, Mr Claude Maerten commended the district assembly and health authorities in the district for their efforts in eradicating guinea worm in the area.
“This is a real great achievement and I hope all partners involved in disease prevention and eradication would strengthen their ties towards achieving greater things in the area of disease management in the district,” Mr Maerten stressed.
The Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Elias Sory commended residents of the district for embracing and accepting the education programmes carried out by health authorities.
He, however, stressed the need for them to focus on sending their children to school, saying that was a big challenge in the area.
Dr Sory entreated residents of the beneficiary communities to maintain the facilities to enable them to derive maximum benefits from them.
The Central Gonja District Chief Executive, Mr Salisu Be-Awuribe, expressed gratitude to the EU and UNICEF for the intervention.
According to him, the district’s water coverage was about 36 per cent due to the low water table in the area.
Mr Be-Awuribe explained that although the district was endowed with the Black and White Volta that passed through the area, access to potable water had been the greatest challenge due to the huge capital investment required to provide potable water using such sources.
The EU head accompanied by his entourage, including Dr Yasmin Ali Haque, the UNICEF Country Representative, visited the Guinea worm case containment centre at Fufulso and also inspected a household water filtration and treatment plant.
The District Co-ordinator of guinea worm eradication programme, Mr Sulemana Ibrahim, stated that between January and December, last year, Fufulso recorded 148 cases of guinea worm as against zero this year.

11,000 FARMERS TO GET IMPROVED RICE (PAGE 43, JUNE 16, 2010)

2010-06-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

MORE than 11,000 farmers in 27 districts in the three northern regions are to benefit from 120 tonnes of improved rice seed to enhance its production in the area by the close of the year.
The seeds, valued at GH¢120,000, are being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Famine Fund Rice Project.
The USAID Project Co-ordinator, Dr Wilson Dogbe, made this known at a Seed Fair at Yilonayili, a suburb of Tamale, to distribute the seeds to beneficiary farmers in the area.
He said the beneficiaries were being linked to agro input dealers to access rice seed and fertiliser at subsidised prices.
The fair was aimed among other objectives at boosting rice production through increased farmer access to rice seed, technology, fertiliser and market.
Dr Dogbe stated that the seed fair was a follow-up to the two-year Emergency Rice Initiative (ERI) project being implemented in four West African countries — Ghana, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal.
According to him, the ERI project started last year and was supposed to boost rice production in 10,000 farm households in each participating country.
“Domestic rice production is characterised by poor farmer access to production factors such as improved seed, technology for rice production, fertiliser and credit. Domestic rice production is trailing far behind demand and stands at about 30 per cent of demand,” he observed.
Dr Dogbe further said plans were far advanced to reach out to 20,000 farmers with rice production videos by the end of 2010.
The Northern Regional Co-ordinator of the ERI, Dr Ibrahim Atokple, said the objectives of the ERI programme was to boost total domestic rice production in Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal by about 30,000 tonnes of paddy rice with a current market value of about $21 million.
He said the seed fair would among other objectives help the farmers source vital inputs at the right time during each production season.
“In terms of yield, over 90 per cent of the farmers realised more than 100 per cent increase, obtaining between 15 and 20 bags of paddy rice per half acre plots of farmland,” he stated.
Dr Atokple said this year, the ERI was targeting 6,000 farmers including those from Yilonayili.

TEENAGER TO DIE BY HANGING (MIRROR, PAGE 35, JUNE 12, 2010)

2010-06-11T07:29:00.001-07:00

From Vincent Amenuveve, Tamale

THE Tamale High Court has sentenced Abdulai Haruna, an unemployed teenager, to death by hanging for murdering a student, Sisu Seidu in Yendi, over a girl.
A seven-member jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty of murder. Haruna had pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Presenting the facts of the case at the court presided over by a Supervising High Court Judge, Mr Justice Lawrence Ladzagla Mensah, a Senior State Attorney, Mr Salia Abdul-Quddus, told the court that the 18-year-old convict and the deceased both lived in Yendi.
According to Mr Abdul-Quddus, on June, 15, 2009, there was a football match at the Yendi football park which both the convict and the deceased attended.
The prosecutor further stated that the deceased saw the convict in the company of a lady, Kande Mohammed and advised him (the convict) to stop any relationship he had with the lady because she (the lady) was married.
The convict did not take kindly to the advice and that resulted in a confrontation in the course of which the convict was beaten up but they were separated and they went to their respective homes.
Mr Abdul-Quddus said on June 22, 2009, between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00p.m., the deceased was in his house with his colleagues when the convict went there accompanied by the lady (Kande) and another gentleman.
The convict invited the deceased out under the pretext of settling their misunderstanding.
According to the prosecution, as soon as the deceased followed the convict out, he (the convict) drew a jack knife out of his pocket and stabbed the deceased in the chest.
The deceased fell unconscious as he lost a lot of blood and was subsequently rushed to the Yendi Government Hospital, where he died on arrival.
Mr Abdul-Quddus stated that the convict fled the scene after the act but was later arrested and after further investigations, he was charged with one count of murder.

NDC WAS BUILT ON JUNE 4 — NANA KONADU (PAGE 14, JUNE 7, 2010)

2010-06-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

A former first Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings has stated that “those who do not believe in June 4 do not also believe in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) because the party and what the country has today was built on the foundations of the revolution”.
“It took a lot of effort, commitment and sacrifice to put the NDC where it is today; it is important to know that the NDC constitution talks about the June 4 and other important days that must be celebrated” Nana Konadu pointed out.
She made this statement when an 11-member executive of the Nurses Training College (NTC) branch of the Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN) of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was inaugurated in Tamale at the weekend with a call on executives to help educate student nurses on the ideals of the June 4 celebration.
She observed that the revolution came to cleanse the system that was fraught with corruption, bad governance and economic policies by successive governments that crippled the nation before 1979.
The former first Lady who is also the Vice Chairperson of the NDC, noted that it was important to form political groups on various campuses of tertiary institutions because there was the need to pass on the “the baton to the younger generation”.
She said that the NDC believed in the concept of power to the people and the only way to do this was to empower the citizens of the country.
She entreated the executives of TEIN to unite the members and other student nurses on campus.
“Do not treat members with disdain and avoid being rude to them by showing them respect; members must also support and collaborate with the leadership for the well being of the group” Nana Konadu pointed out.
Touching on some challenges in the health sector, the former first lady called for urgent steps to provide maternity hospitals in all districts of the country as a strategy to curb the high maternal and infant mortality rates.
She equally advised student nurses to be compassionate towards their patients because they were vulnerable.
The new President of the NTC-TEIN, Mr Abdul Hamid Tawfiq said the June 4 celebration had come to stay.
According to him, the ideals of June 4 should be held in high esteem and paid a glowing tribute to the founder of the NDC, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings.
Mr Tawfiq thanked the TEIN members for the confidence reposed in him and his colleagues and called for effective collaboration and trust to enhance the fortunes of the group.

CHECK ILLEGAL WATER CONNECTIONS (PAGE 23, JUNE 7, 2010)

2010-06-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

THE General Manager of Communications of Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL), Mr Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, has called for stiffer punishment to be meted out to those who engage in illegal water connections in the Tamale Metropolis.
He said imposing “stringent sanctions” on recalcitrant consumers of water would serve as a deterrent to others and enhance the revenue base of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in the area.
Mr Sakyi-Addo was interacting with newsmen in Tamale during a stakeholders meeting which was organised by the AVRL/GWCL on addressing the challenges that militate against ample supply of water to the metropolis.
In attendance were traditional rulers, representatives of public agencies and institutions, officials of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly and the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (RCC)..
He said that the situation where persons who had been arrested for engaging in illegal connection were fined paltry sums and went back to commit the same illegal act must be stopped.
The General Manager further intimated that the challenges in the water sector needed to be solved collectively.
“It is, however, clear that water supply has over the years significantly improved but the issue is that the improved supply is not commensurate with the revenue being generated”, he pointed out.
Mr Sakyi-Addo, stressed the need for intensive public education to ensure that consumers pay for the water they used.
According to him, the company would need $1.8 billion to increase urban water coverage from 59 to 80 per cent nationwide.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, observed that the shortage of potable water had the potential of eroding the gains made in eliminating guinea worm.
“Although massive investment in the water sector had been made in the past, more needs to be done to match the increasing population of the region, especially the rural communities and the Tamale Metropolis”, he stated.
Mr Mabengba said in spite of the successful execution of the Tamale Water Expansion Project, many communities still complained of not having potable water and indicated that the RCC would support the various district assemblies to pull down illegal structures situated on the pipelines of the AVRL/GWCL.
“The public wants value for money to justify calls for prompt payment of bills and tariff increases; the public fails to understand why losses emanating from lack of supervision on the part of the operator should be pushed down the throats of consumers”, he stressed.
The Regional Customer Care Manager, Mr Kwabena Tabiri, mentioned hostilities and threats from some customers, interference by some opinion leaders and tampering of water installations as some of challenges facing the sector.
He said high water demand during dry season, construction of structures on pipelines,thereby causing leakages, unstable power supply in the production system, illegal water connections and meter bypasses were some of the problems that the company faced.

REV NAAMEH NOT HAPPHY WITH VANDALISM (PAGE 23, JUNE 7, 2010)

2010-06-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

THE Catholic Archbishop of Tamale, the Most Reverend Philip Naameh, has expressed concern over the immoral acts and social vices that are practised in secondary and tertiary institutions in the country.
He pointed out that deviant acts like lesbianism, homosexuality, pervasive sexual immorality and occultism which are alien to the Ghanaian culture had gained notoriety among students and must be nipped in the bud.
The Most Rev. Naameh stated this during the inauguration of the Second Ghana Version of the World Youth Day celebration (WYD) of the Catholic Archdioceses in Tamale.
It was organised by the Ghana National Catholic Youth Council (GHANCYC).
It had the theme “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” and aimed at complementing government and civil society ‘s efforts to bring lasting peace to the north.
The conference was also to help encourage the youth to avoid such social vices such as indecent dressing, drug abuse, alcoholism and disrespect for the elderly.,
More than 3,000 Catholic youth from all over the country attended the five-day programme.
The Archbishop further pointed out that “these anti-Gospel practices in our secondary and tertiary institutions are through the influx of foreign cultures and these negative practices inhibit the youth from practising sound moral values”.
He entreated religious bodies, educational authorities, parents, traditional rulers and elders in the society to help address these issues in order to secure a good future for the youth.
The Most Rev. Naameh equally observed that the celebration would enable the youth to “destroy those prejudices and stereotyping of some ethnic groups in the country”.
“The youth are being commissioned to go out and evangelise, particularly among their peers because some people do not acknowledge the need for sound moral values”, he stated.
The Archbishop observed that bringing Catholic youth together on such occasions was necessary as it would afford them the opportunity of living together and accepting each other, in spite of their tribes.
He urged Catholics to support the youth and exhibit a certain level of sacrifice to make the celebration successful.
The Chairman of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Mr Peter Tanga, entreated the youth not to allow themselves to be used by “selfish and greedy adults to perpetuate crime”.
According to him, the time had come for the youth to change their attitude and “surrender themselves totally to the Living God; we must see ourselves as agents of change”.
Mr Tanga condemned the recent ‘shit-bombing’ of the Martyrs of Uganda Parish by unidentified members .
He, therefore, called on parents and the church leaders to take a second look at the upbringing of children and youth of the Catholic Church.
“Parents no longer encourage their children to attend youth programmes where Catholic values are taught and exhibited and the church also no longer provides enough funding for the continuous formulation of youth programme,” he stated.

TAMALE POLYTECHNIC AFFECTED BY ENCROACHMENT (PAGE 23, JUNE 7, 2010)

2010-06-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

ENCROACHMENT of lands is one phenomenon in the Tamale metropolis that has bedevilled its development agenda.
Concerns have been raised on many platforms about this issue by developers, school authorities and other development partners, but it seemed not to get the needed attention.
In some cases, the issue degenerates into legal tussles by interested parties.
The latest institution to complain about encroachment is the Tamale Polytechnic.
At its recent 4th Congregation, the Rector of the Polytechnic, Alhaji Dr Yakubu Seidu Peligah, made a special appeal to the government to help construct a fence wall round the Polytechnic.
He stressed that “in recent times, the Tamale Polytechnic has had to engage in land litigations due mainly to encroachment on our land”.
Dr Peligah therefore, entreated traditional rulers in the metropolis to help fight encroachment on the polytechnic’s land.
Indeed, a similar concern was raised by the Chairman of the Governing Council, Dr Seidu Mohammed Mustapha.
“One other serious difficulty confronting the polytechnic is encroachment on its lands, especially on its eastern borders; council is very much concerned about this phenomenon and as such, our ultimate goal is to fence the boundaries of the polytechnic” he pointed out.
Dr Mustapha however, expressed regret that the issue of fencing the Polytechnic required “heavy capital investment” and hoped the donor community and non-governmental organisations would support it in that direction.
He pleaded with traditional authorities who are the real custodians of the land for their assistance in protecting the polytechnic’s land from encroachers.

GIVE ALLEGED WITCHES ACCESS TO NHIS (PAGE 19, JUNE 1, 2010)

2010-06-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

THE Regent of Kukuo in the Nanumba South District of the Northern Region, Mahami Iddrisu, has called on human rights activists and the government to ensure that the alleged witches confined at a camp in the area benefit from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He explained that the health needs of the witches were in jeopardy due to poverty, and the failure to grant them the NHIS services was undermining their fundamental human rights as citizens of the country.
The regent made the call when the Co-ordinator of the Southern Sector Youth and Women Empowerment Network (SOSYWEN), Madam Zenabu Sakibu, called on him at his palace as part of her visit to the witches camp.
The SOSYWEN, a non-governmental organisation, has been instrumental in supporting efforts at providing the needs of the 123 alleged witches and their 171 grandchildren at the camp.
Regent Iddrisu said of the 123 witches, only 11 were on the scheme, with 64 out of their 171 grandchildren having been registered.
He contended that it was unacceptable for the witches to be denied access to the scheme just because they were poor.
According to him, the witches were only being accused of engaging in suspected witchcraft and that was not enough proof to deny them of their health needs, which was their right.
According to the regent, because of stigmatisation most of the witches and their grandchildren could not be integrated into their respective communities although the purification rites had been performed.
“Whether witches can be integrated into their community or not depends so much on the will of the community and their respective families; whereas a man (wizard) can go back to his community a woman accused of witchcraft cannot because of cultural and traditional values,” the regent stated.
He, therefore, appealed to benevolent and public-spirited individuals and organisations to come to the aid of the alleged witches.

STATION MANAGERS MUST BE VIGILANT (PAGE 29, MAY 25, 2010)

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The Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Mr Noble Appiah, has entreated station managers and branch executives of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) at the Aboabu Lorry Station in Tamale to be vigilant and check drivers and their vehicles to reduce accidents on the roads.
He stated that the Ministry of Roads and Transport had instituted an awards scheme for station managers and drivers as a way of encouraging them to play effective roles in the curbing of accidents on the roads.
Mr Appiah gave the advice at a meeting with station managers and branch executives of the GPRTU at the Aboabu Lorry Station in Tamale.
The meeting was aimed at educating drivers on the need to take precautionary measures to avoid accidents.
Mr Appiah said it was important for executives of the GPRTU to ensure that drivers complied with road safety measures.
“You must assert yourselves and ensure that your drivers avoid thinking so much about their profit, to the detriment of the safety of passengers,” he added.
He expressed regret that 70 per cent of all accidents recorded in Ghana occurred on good roads.
“Road traffic accidents are not acceptable and passengers must also assert themselves if their lives are put in jeopardy,” he observed.
He pointed out that “station managers must know drivers who are competent”.
He also lamented the fact that about a month ago 21 people died when two vehicles from Tamale got involved in an accident at Dawadawa on the Tamale-Kintampo road.
“This is unacceptable and we must ensure that this does not happen again. We all have a responsibility to ensure effective road safety measures,” Mr Appiah stressed.

SHOW CONCERN FOR CHILDREN AT ORPHANAGES (PAGE 11, MAY 18, 2010)

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ATHE Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, has advised operators of orphanages to be primarily concerned with the interest of children under their care.
Sharing his thoughts on the proliferation of orphanages in certain parts of the country with the Daily Graphic in Tamale, he said some of “the children in these orphanages are not orphans but are put there by greedy and selfish people who use them to solicit alms in kind and in cash for their personal gains”.
He said in some cases the practice of keeping children in these institutions was now counter-productive and should be discouraged.
Mr Antwi-Boasiako explained that over the years, the practice of keeping children in such institutions was viewed as the most appropriate option for offering care, support and protection for needy children, but pointed out that the practice was now different as most operators of those institutions did not have the paramount interest of the children at heart.
Mr Antwi-Boasiako said, for instance, that the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed over the decades between the Government of Ghana and Save Our Souls (SOS) Villages must be reviewed, stressing that, “We have operated under this document since then but times have changed, situations differ now from then and it is about time we revisited that document to bring it up-to-date with current developments in the field of child protection”.
The minister, however, acknowledged that the SOS Villages ran community-based social and educational programmes in the surrounding communities within which they operated and described that initiative as a better childcare option.
The Northern Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Mr John Ankrah, said children should grow in a family setting.
He, however, explained that although allowing children to grow in institutions retarded their emotional and brain development, that did not contribute to the breakdown of the nuclear and extended family systems.
Mr Ankrah attributed the breakdown of family structures to industrialisation resulting in rural-urban migration and said when people migrated to the cities for ‘greener pastures’, they got detached from their nuclear and extended families as most of them were unable to attend funerals and other social gatherings or support their families economically.
He said in law, the orphanages were referred to as residential homes for children in the Children’s Act and stressed the need for operators of orphanages to operate their facilities as such, by providing them with the needed care, support, love and training to enhance their growth and development.

MAYOR TASKS FINANCE COMMITTEE (PAGE 18, MAY 14, 2010)

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THE Mayor of Tamale, Alhaji Abdulai Harruna Friday, has tasked the Finance and Administration sub-committee of the assembly to come out with more innovative ways of mobilising revenue for the assembly.
“The sub-committee may also have to revise some of the mechanisms used in collecting revenue in order to step-up our performance to attract more funds to meet our development targets,” he indicated.
The mayor, who was speaking at the first ordinary meeting of the assembly this year in Tamale, bemoaned the abysmal performance of the revenue department of the assembly in the first quarter of this year.
From January to March, the assembly generated only GH¢148,000 representing about 19 per cent of the targeted revenue of GH¢814,148.00 for the year.
“From the picture, it is clear that we need to do more to be able to achieve our annual revenue target and I will urge our revenue officers to take it upon themselves as a challenge to themselves and as a group,” Alhaji Friday stated.
He further stated that, as part of measures to ensure efficiency in revenue mobilisation, the assembly will be embarking on periodic checks on the books of revenue collectors at post.
The mayor announced that the assembly had received an amount of GH¢345,000 as its fourth quarter allocation of the Common Fund and that, “the amount is being used to service existing debts and other approved development projects of the assembly”.
On the prevailing peaceful atmosphere in the metropolis, Alhaji Friday commended security persons including the “Bilchinsi” peace council and taskforces at the various communities for their dedication and selflessness.
He promised that the assembly will provide them with the necessary logistics to facilitate their work.
The mayor called for the co-operation of residents in the work of the taskforce and indicated that, “the maintenance of peace and security should be seen as the collective responsibility of every one of us in this metropolis”.

ZOOMLION FUMIGATES MARKET CENTRES (PAGE 18, MAY 14, 2010)

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THE Vector Control Unit of Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL) in Tamale has embarked on an intensive exercise to rid the Aboabu, Central and other markets in the Tamale Metropolis of rodents.
The measure is aimed at ensuring a clean and healthy environment at the various markets in the Metropolis.
The Communications Officer of the ZGL, responsible for the three northern regions, Mr Francis Abirigo, told the Daily Graphic that his outfit decided to carry out such “an aggressive exercise because rodents do not only inconvenience human beings but also pose a health hazard to people as they poison food and destroy property”.
Mr Abirigo said densely populated areas in the Metropolis and the region have been identified for the exercise.
He mentioned the Salaga Central Market, Yendi and Savelugu as other places earmarked for the exercise.
He underscored the need for individuals, especially market women, to avoid leaving their food uncovered in order not to be contaminated by the rodents.
He said the team also embarked on educational campaigns to make the company’s operations and their benefits to the communities known to residents.
The Northern Regional Vector Control Officer, Mr Zakaria Abdul-Rashid, said after the sensitisation exercise, the team carried out pre-baiting, where pieces of bread were kept at vantage points in the selected markets.
He explained that the team went to the markets the following morning to ascertain whether the rodents have picked the pieces of bread.
According to him, if the rodents picked the bread, then by evening, a chemical called “storm” was put into the pieces of bread.
According to the Officer, the team finalises its work by going round the market to check on the results the third day.
Mr Rashid said the chemical, unlike other chemicals that kill rodents inside shops and holes, make the rodents feel warm and then come out to look for fresh air and die subsequently.
He said another team was spraying all toilet facilities and drains to stop the breeding of mosquitoes and other vectors.
A market woman, Madam Rakia Abdulai, on behalf of her colleagues said since the exercise was carried out, they had not seen any sign of rodents in the area.
She therefore appealed to the company to sustain the exercise for the benefit of traders in the various markets in Northern Ghana.

TAMALE CENTRAL PRISONS NEEDS MODERN STRUCTURES (PAGE 22, MAY 14, 2010)

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THE Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, has called for the construction of modern structures for the Tamale Central Prison.
He stated that such a measure would ultimately help reduce overcrowding at the prison due to the ever-increasing population of prisoners on remand.
“The current poor facilities at the prison are unsafe for habitation so stakeholders must help put up a new structure,” the minister stressed.
Mr Mabengba made the call at the inauguration of a seven-member regional prisons committee chaired by the regional minister.
The committee, whose membership comprised of officials and directors from the Ghana Health Service, Attorney General’s Department and traditional authorities, was tasked with the responsibility of identifying problems in the prisons and making appropriate recommendations to enhance proper management of the sector.
The regional minister observed that “from my occasional visits to the Tamale Central Prison after the escape of the notorious armed robber, Johnson Kombian, I noticed that the prison was very old”.
According to him, the prison was established during the colonial era “around 1928 and since then, the structure has never seen any major rehabilitation or expansion works”.
Mr Mabengba suggested that the new structure could be done in phases.
He announced that the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) would assist prison officers in Tamale to acquire decent accommodation through the South Korean Housing Project.
“It is therefore my hope that with the inauguration of the committee, we shall work closely with several partners like the judiciary, police, legislature, religious groups and non-governmental organisations to help integrate prisoners into the society after their release from prison,” he stated.
Mr Mabengba expressed regret that some of the workshops at the prison were idle for lack of tools, and stressed the need to revamp such facilities and equip them with modern equipment to enhance the reformatory and correctional process for prisoners.
The Chairman of the Prisons Service Council, Air Marshal John Bruce, expressed regret that the most recent annual report of the service indicated that 51.8 per cent of the inmates were between the ages of 18 and 25.
“The council is very disturbed about these figures because they represent a waste of human resources,” the chairman stated.
According to him, the service lacked the needed resources to enable them to offer meaningful training for those inmates.
He entreated civil society groups, the media, philanthropists and non-governmental organisations to support the prisons service, particularly in the area of integrating prisoners into the society.
Air Marshal Bruce also expressed concern about the low daily feeding grant of 60Gp that was woefully inadequate to provide inmates with meals of nutritional value.