Need to depoliticise media landscape-media analysts

MEDIA analysts have called for the depolitisisation of the Ghanaian media landscape to allow for positive reportage that will advance the cause of the country’s socio-economic development.
Their concerns stem out of the fact that the polarisation of the media along partisan lines has let the consuming public lose faith in the industry, to the extent that patronage of newspapers and other journals is consistently on the decline.
The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Prof Kwame Karikari; the acting Director of the School of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr Audrey Gadzekpo, and Dr Kofi Amoah, a prominent businessman, shared these concerns in Accra last Friday during the maiden edition of the Citizen Kofi Media Dialogue series.
The platform, which is expected to be a monthly soiree for journalists, is to review the performance of the media as the Fourth Estate of the Realm with the ultimate aim of bettering their output to effectively contribute to the national cause. 
Prof Karikari, who moderated the function, said inasmuch as the media space was open to divergent views, the process had been abused in a manner to serve the narrow parochial interests of individuals to advance their political agenda.
He contended that for the democratic process to be successful, there was the need for media pluralism to prevail, which explained why the state-owned media were obliged, under the Constitution, to ensure that all political parties in the contest of elections were offered equal time and space.
On partisanship in the media, Prof Karikari said the cardinal purpose of establishing media institutions was to help in contributing to free speech by encouraging the culture of civilised debate and general enlightenment, underscoring that any other purpose for political gain was not serving that purpose right.
He recalled that press freedom was blatantly abused after the 1966 coup that toppled the government of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, creating the conditions for newspapers in the country to go partisan, including the state-owned media.
He explained that given the partisan state of the media at that time, Ghanaians had no choice but to opt for the West Africa magazine which, in their estimation, offered edifying stories.
Taking their turn, Dr Gadzekpo and Dr Amoah were unanimous in their call for journalists to project the concerns of the citizenry for the attention of the appropriate authorities for resolution.
For Dr Amoah, even though Ghana returned to multi-party democracy in 1993, a lot was desired when juxtaposed against the pace of socio-economic development.
Dr Gadzekpo, for her part, argued that polarisation in the media itself was not the issue but allowing partisan considerations to cloud and influence facts was the bane of journalism.
“Journalists can be partisan, but in doing so what is their commitment to the facts? Partisanship influences journalists to overlook the facts, bringing to question their adherence to ethics,” she said.
She expressed concern that journalists in Ghana had left the advocacy of issues that would better their profession to civil society organisations to do, citing the passage of the Right to Information Bill as a typical case in point.
Dr Gadzekpo further decried the media’s lukewarm attitude towards pushing for the passage of the Broadcasting and the Defamation bills, saying that it was about time journalists showed interest in matters bordering on their profession.

African University College opens business school

THE African University College of Communications (AUCC) has expanded its curriculum with the launch of a business school to expand the scope of its students and others seeking admission to pursue business studies.
The AUCC School of Business is expected to equip students with the right training to influence organisational strategy and is affiliated to the University of Ghana for the award of a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration.
At the official launch of the school on the premises of the AUCC, on Monday, the Dean of the School, Mr Bernard Otabil, described it as a unique place for studies as students would be equipped to own a business, given the challenges of the ever changing world.
“The School of Business is to offer students the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills for jobs and leadership roles in their respective organisations,” he said.
Speaking on the theme: “Getting Started -The Changing Face of Business Education,” Mr Otabil said the AUCC was conscious of offering the right training to its students with its portfolio of activities that included research and consultancy, in recognition of the importance of  business education to organisations.
He mentioned  the Bachelor’s programmes the School was offering, including  BSc Administration with options in Marketing and Accounting, BSc Human Resource  Management, BSc Banking and Finance and other professional courses.
He indicated that those courses were suitable for chief executive officers and others in the corporate working environment who wanted to pursue further studies.
The Dean was of the view that past AUCC successes did not necessarily guarantee the university’s future performance and so the Business School would always involve itself in the process of redefining its focus as well as searching for new opportunities.
“That is what we will do in our bid to stay successful as a business school in the coming years,” Mr Otabil noted and stressed that the strategic plan of the School was to tailor its programmes to the needs of industry with the view to becoming a market-led business school.
The Guest Speaker for the occasion, Professor Emmanuel Ofori Akyea,  who is the Executive Vice President of AUCC, in his remarks, said the School would incorporate into its programmes courses on ethics to guide its students in their various fields of work, upon graduation.
He explained that teaching the students the ethics of business was a prerequisite for offering them the vision to becoming enviable leaders in the new millennium.
The Business School is expected to admit its first batch of students in February this year.





 

Ghana benefits from f$21m food security package

GHANA has benefited from a US$21 million package from the US government to design and implement food security strategies and investment plans.
The package is expected to be used for training and building the capacity of professionals to ensure food security in the country for agicultural led-growth in the long term.
The facility which forms part of a compact to be extended to other West African countries including Senegal, Nigeria, Liberia and Mali is aimed at investing in people through institutions to undertake courses in capacity building and training to help in the sacaling up of food security. 
Under the NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADEP) the package is designed to support Africa to scale up its food security by ensuring that institutions involved in the business of agriculture were well resourced to meet global food challenges.
To that end, an African leadership training and capacity building programme involving participants from Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia was held to provide training to strengthen the capacity of African professionals to assume leadership roles in their institutions to move the CAADEP agenda forward.
The programme is under the US government’s Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, which marks a radical departure from the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) customary level of engagement with host country governments.
Presenting an overview of the programme, the Deputy Chief of Party of AFRICA LEAD, a capacity building arm of the FTF initiative, Mrs Carla Denizard, said the initiative operated in three regions with offices in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
She explained that it was to build the capacity of leaders to prioritise key activities and implement country investment plans with the NEPAD’s CAADP framework.
Her outfit, she noted, sought to ensure that sufficient leaders were trained to maintain a critical mass of food security ‘champions’ who would drive agriculture-led development.
Among the key areas of deliberations of the training, according to Mrs Denizard, are a course for a multi and cross-sectoral change agents about the CAADP process, as well how to deepen the understanding of country compacts and investment plans.
The training, she added, were developed in modules under which there were topics such as assessing capacity needs and developing a training database.
The USAID Mission Director for West Africa, Mr Patrick Henderson, who was the special guest, said more than one billion people who constituted one sixth of the world’s population suffered from chronic hunger with  devastating and far-reaching effects.
On that score, he said at the July 2009 G8 summit in Italy, the US President, Mr Barack Obama, pledged at least US$3.5 billion to combat food insecurity, which led to the birth of the ‘Feed The Future’ programme.
The Director of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr Ram Ebo Bhavnami, who represented  Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, said Ghana was heavily investing in the agricultural sector to forestall any future risk.   

 
  

Bishop Thompson laid to rest

A requiem and thanksgiving mass was held yesterday for the late Rt Rev Lt. Col Francis William Banahene Thompson (retd), who passed away on December 28, 2010 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Accra. He was 84.
The mass brought together bishops of all the dioceses of the Anglican Church in Ghana to say goodbye to the late Rev. Thompson, who was the Quondam Anglican Bishop of Accra.
 The officiating minister, the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of West Africa (CPWA) and Bishop of Accra, Most Rev. Dr Justice O. Akrofi,  was supported by other clergymen and bishops of the Anglican faith from across the country.
A retired Archbishop of CPWA and Bishop of Koforidua and Ho, Rt. Rev. Mathias Medadues-Badoho, officiated the Prayer of Surrender, which read in part, “We give back to you, Lord who gave him to us; yet as you do not lose him in giving; so we have not lost him by return...”.
There were farewell messages from friends and sympathisers and the alma mater of the bishop, the Accra Academy Old Boys Association.
After the mass, the bishops led a procession from the church premises on the High Street in Accra, to the Osu Military Cemetery where the mortal remains of the late Rt. Rev. Thompson was interred.
Among the dignitaries present were the Minister of Defence, Lt. Gen. Henry Smith (retd) and his predecessor, Dr Kwame Addo Kufour.
Rev. Thompson was, among other things, educated at the Government Senior Boys School, where he was the school prefect/bell boy and had his secondary education at Accra Academy.
He was trained in the Monastery of the Order of Benedict Nashdom Abbey in the UK from 1958-1962 and also studied at the House of Sacred Mission/Kelham Theological College from 1962-1963 and attended a number of courses and seminars.
He was ordained a Deacon in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Accra on the Feast of St Michael and All Angels on September 29, 1963 and finally ordained a priest at St Nicholas, Adisadel College at Cape Coast the following year.
In 1968, Rev. Thompson was seconded to the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) where he was posted to St George’s Garrison Church, Burma Camp as Officiating Chaplain to the GAF, where he served until July 31, 1982 before he retired as Lieutenant Colonel.
He left behind a wife and two children.

350 complete training under NYEP module

THREE hundred and fifty youth under the Youth-In-Prisons module of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), on Thursday passed out after an intensive six-month training.
The graduands, including 93 females, who were trained in Drill, Human Rights, Reception Duties, First Aid/Security and ICT, formed the second batch of beneficiaries to graduate, bringing the number of beneficiaries under the module to 700.
The  ceremony attracted friends and relations of the graduands who thronged the Ghana Prisons Service Training School in Accra to offer them support  for successfully undergoing the training.
The Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Nii Nortey Dua, who was the reviewing officer, accompanied by the National Co-ordinator of the NYEP, Mr Abuga Pele, inspected the parade accompanied by  music provided by the prison service band.
Mr Pele in his address expressed his appreciation to the prison authorities for their continued support in ensuring the smooth training and subsequent graduation of the 700 beneficiaries of the NYEP.
He said it was the objective of the government to engage about 5000 unemployed youth under the module to augment the strength of personnel at the Ghana Prison Service.
He added that the Youth-In-Fire Service and Youth-In-Immigration modules were on course to produce more employees to contribute their quota to the socio-economic development agenda.
He called on the prison authorities to consider looking within by absorbing some of the graduands permanently into the mainstream service when doing the recruitment exercise.
Mr Pele advised the graduands to be  good ambassadors by maintaining  discipline to guarantee their continued stay in the service.
Nii Nortey Dua for his part said the module would not only create jobs opening and career development for the youth but also support the prison service auxiliary and business units established to provide the needed resources to augment the government’s efforts.
The graduation, he pointed out, was a manifestation and a fulfilment of the government’s policy to invest in the youth and that the module was in line with the new strategic plan of the NYEP.
Nii Dua reaffirmed the ministry’s commitment to involve the youth in the national decision-making process and thus called on beneficiaries of the NYEP to discharge their duties diligently.




  
 


  

Yutong bus crashes into restaurant at Achimota

A SPEEDING Kumasi-bound Yutong bus whose driver had an earpiece in his ears skidded off the Achimota-Nsawam Road and crashed into a restaurant at Achimota, causing injury to six people.
Nobody died in the accident, which occurred around 5:30 p.m. last Friday, and the injured persons were rushed to the Achimota Hospital.
According to eyewitnesses, the accident could have been tragic if vehicles had approached from the opposite direction, since there could have been a head-on collision.
When the Daily Graphic got to the accident scene around 6:15 p.m., the bus, with registration number GC 5069 Z, had damaged the wall of the Mc Tee Restaurant and Pub and a parked BMW saloon car, with registration number GS 3398 Y, which, fortunately, was unoccupied at the time of the accident.
An eyewitness, who sustained a minor injury and gave his name as King, said he had gone to the restaurant to buy food. While he was waiting to be served, he heard a loud noise.
Sensing danger, the customers in the restaurant started running to safety. All of a sudden, the bus rammed into the outer wall of the restaurant, smashing the BMW in the process.
“My brother, a lot of us here could have been dead by now if we had not sighted the bus approaching our direction,” King said in a trembling voice.
The Manager of the restaurant, Mr Teddy Antwi Adjei, explaining how he miraculously escaped death, said he, in the company of some clients, was sitting facing the road when he heard a screeching sound emanating from the bus.
He said all of a sudden the bus driver, who seemed to have lost control of the vehicle, veered off the road in the direction of the restaurant.
He said the owner of the BMW decided to take refuge under her car, the impact of the crash into the BMW making her sustain serious injuries.
According to Mr Adjei, after the accident, scores of angry residents and passers-by who thronged the scene wanted to lynch the driver but he was whisked to safety.
A security woman who declined to mention her name explained that the Yutong bus had been speeding and, in its attempt to avoid hitting a Tico car around the new Achimota Overpass, it veered off the road, resulting in the accident.
Checks by the Daily Graphic indicated that the expiry date on the insurance sticker on the bus was December 21, 2010.
Authorities from the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Tesano Police Station were at the scene on Saturday to assess the situation, after which the bus and the BMW were towed away for further investigations.  

Veep to cut sod for BRT road project

THE Vice-President, Mr John Mahama, is expected to cut the sod on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 for work to begin on the first phase of road projects for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) programme in Accra.
 The project, which is under the Urban Transport Initiative, is expected to link the BRT system from the central business district (CBD) of Accra to Kasoa, a growing business district in the Central Region.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashietey, said this at the weekend when he organised an end-of-year party at his residence for a cross-section of residents of Accra, including chiefs and government officials.
He also recounted some completed and ongoing development projects being undertaken in the Greater Accra Region, in line with the government’s declaration of 2011 as a year of action.
He said the street lighting system was on course, while the installation of new traffic lights and improved road infrastructure to ease traffic congestion were ongoing.
While assuring the gathering of the completion of the Tetteh Quarshie-Pantang, Tetteh Quarshie-Mallam, Achimota-Ofankor and Teshie-Nungua roads by the close of this year, Mr Ashietey said two new district hospital projects would commence in the Adentan and the Ga East municipalities this year.
He added that an additional 100-bed hospital with a Malaria Research Centre at Teshie had been completed and handed over to the Ledzokuku Municipal Assembly.
Touching on educational infrastructure, the regional minister, whose performance in office in the last two years was applauded by his guests, indicated that the construction of 12-unit classroom blocks for 33 senior high schools (SHSs) in the region began last year with the view to easing congestion in those schools.
He added that contract for 93 six-unit classroom blocks had also been awarded and the projects were expected to be completed this year, in line with the government's commitment to eradicate schools under trees.
He said the shift system, which hitherto was a major challenge, was gradually but steadily being phased out and expressed the hope that the phenomenon would become history by the end of the first term of the Mills administration.
On agriculture, Mr Ashietey, who is also the Member of Parliament for Klottey Korley, debunked the notion that the region was not noted for contributing significantly to the national food basket.
He contended that it produced food to feed the nation better than some of the renowned agricultural baskets in the country and cited two farmers from the region who placed second and third in the National Farmers Day Awards, with the latest being Mr Adjetey Adjei from Tema who was adjudged the 2010 National Best Farmer.
The minister commended security agencies in the region for maintaining the peace and helping bring the armed robbery situation in the region under control.
A member of the Council of State, Nii Adjei Annang, while calling for unity in the region, especially among Gas, for continued peace and development, urged parents to enrol their children in school to secure a bright future for them.

Don’t take ethnic conflicts for granted— Panellists warn Ghanaians

SPEAKERS at a lecture in Accra to mark the formal inauguration of Planet Three Peace Programme (P3PP) have stressed the need for Ghanaians not to take the pockets of ethnic conflicts in the country for granted, since those conflicts have the potential to assume a national dimension.
The acting Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Anna Bossman, the Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP), Mr Emmanuel Bombande, and the Head of the Sociology Department of the University of Ghana, Prof Steve O. Tonah, were unanimous in their call for peace to be upheld in order not to go the path of conflicts that had plagued many African countries.
Mr Bombande, who was the guest speaker, said justice was a prerequisite for peace and that the absence of violence did not automatically mean peace.
He underscored the need for Ghanaians to go beyond appreciating the prevailing peace and rather advocate its principles and values.
Quoting statistics from the United Nations (UN) which rated 11 out of the 15 countries of ECOWAS as the poorest of the poor, he stated that inter-communal conflicts bred mistrust and suspicion and cited the recent conflict at Buipe in the Northern Region as a typical case in point.
Touching on the breakdown of indigenous Ghanaian values of peace, Mr Bombande explained that the extended family system that was once cherished by Ghanaians was fast breaking down and cautioned that that undermined family and ethnic cohesion.
He called for the speedy passage of the Peace Council Bill into law to give impetus to the desire to maintain the peace the country was enjoying, as well as the strengthening of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) for it to meet regularly, instead of only in election years, as a means of effectively resolving political differences.
Ms Bossman, who chaired the function, called on Ghanaians to extend a hand of love and peace to one another to promote national cohesion.
Prof Tonah expressed concern over the hostile competition for political power among political parties, saying that  tendency had the potential to plunge the country into political chaos.
The Board Chairman of the P3PP, Prof Dominic Kofi Agyeman, described the organisation as a strong advocate for the cultivation of people's responsibilities towards one another as individual members of the family, the community and the country at large.
He said abuses in the distribution of the resources of nations, with prejudice to party affiliation and creed, colour, class, gender and ethnic association, were acts that often led to conflict situations.
Earlier in his remarks, the Founder of the P3PP, Mr Paul Agyei Gyang, had said the formation of the NGO was in response to the question as to how to secure lasting peace for sustainable development in Ghana and Africa.   
  

Illegal structures to give way for rail project

STRUCTURES that are within 100 feet of railway lines in the Accra metropolis are to be demolished to pave way for work to begin on the extension of the Accra sub-urban railway line project.
The decision to demolish the unauthorised structures was reached yesterday when officials of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA) toured some railway sites in Accra to assess the level to which land belonging to the authority had been encroached upon.
An ultimatum issued to the squatters to relocate expired after October 10, 2010, after several announcements had been made, and the AMA is left with no alternative but to move into action.
The tour took the officials to the Accra-Alajo railway stretch through the railway lines from the central business district of Accra.  
Briefing the media after the tour, the AMA Chief Executive, Mr Alfred Vanderpuije, said before the demolition could begin, mobile vans would be dispatched to remind the squatters of the intended exercise.
Decrying the recalcitrance of the squatters, despite persistent reminders to them to relocate, he cautioned residents of the metropolis to disabuse their minds of the notion that there were free lands in the metropolis which served no purpose.
"People should not think that there is free land anywhere and, therefore, they can do whatever they want with it," he said.
He stated that the persistent encroachment on government lands by unscrupulous individuals denied the country the needed development and called on those who were mischievously making political capital out of decongesting exercises to desist from that to allow the AMA the free hand to execute its mandate.    
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the GRDA, Mr Dan Markin, said the nation could not continue to condone illegality with respect to the indiscriminate encroachment of the authority's lands.
Adding his voice to Mr Vanderpuije's call for the depoliticisation of demolition exercises in the metropolis, he said the sod was expected to be cut in the latter part of February this year for the railway extension to commence following the state visit by President J.E.A. Mills to China last year.
Mr Markin said with the development of a new standard gauge by engineers from the Chinese International Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation, the railway project was expected to link the Accra-Tema and the Accra-Nsawam-Kumasi stretch to pave way for the western line to come on stream. 

New micro business project to equip youth with skills

MORE than 40,000 youth across the country are to be equipped with employable skills under a micro business project.
 THE youth will receive training in agro-processing and packaging, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), garment and beauty care as well as catering services.
They will be given entrepreneurial skills and supported with equipment to establish their own businesses.
The Job Creation and Enterprise Module is a special initiative of the Enterprises and Skills Development Centre (YESDEC), to be implemented in partnership with the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) and the National Youth Council (NYC).
The project, which is scheduled to take off next month, will engage about 1,000 youth this year from across the 10 regions in micro businesses.
The project is in line with the new strategic plan of the NYEP which focuses on the development and promotion of entrepreneurial skills among the youth.
At the official launch of the module in Accra, on Wednesday, the outgoing Minister of Youth and Sports, Ms Akua Sena Dansua, said the NYEP-YESDEC module was in tune with the NYEP's strategy for 2010-2013.
The strategy  aims at creating direct employment for more than 750,000 youth through the implementation of the various targeted modules.
The project, she stated, was developed with the capacity to engage as many youth as possible and encourage them in enterpreneurship in order to reduce the load on the NYEP's monthly payroll.
Ms Dansua explained that the over reliance on the implementation of the NYEP's traditional modules such as the paid internship module despite the fact that it was making a positive impact on the communities continued to put enormous load on the monthly payroll.
Earlier in his remarks, the National Co-ordinator of the NYEP, Mr Abuga Pele, who described the partnership with its attendant benefits as a legacy "we can leave as a nation for our young and up-coming youth" indicated that with the rolling out of the module the youth could be guaranteed the opportunity to create wealth to contribute their bit to the national development agenda.
He said although the module was ultimately aimed at providing more than 40,000 youth with employable skills the initial target was to engage over 1,000 from across the regions by November this year.
Mr Pele entreated financial institutions to support the implementation of the module as their outlets per the project design would be used to handle disbursement in respect of cost of set up equipment for the beneficiaries.
The National Programme Co-ordinator of YESDEC, Ms Mavis Yamoah, told the Daily Graphic that the YESDEC entrepreneurial skills commenced at its head office in Kumasi where more than 200 youth were currently undergoing training to be assisted to set up their own businesses.
The Opportunity Industrialisation Centres (OICs) across the country are the venues for the training programme with the NYC and the Integrated Community Centre for Employable Skills (ICCES) as collaborating partners. 
   
  

 
 

Energy ministry, Chinese sign US$120 accord

THE Ministry of Energy and the Hunan Construction Engineering Group Corporation of China, on Tuesday, signed a US$120 million commercial loan agreement for the extension of electricity to 500 communities in the Northern Region.
The sector Minister, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, signed on behalf of the Government of Ghana (GoG) while the General Manager of the Overseas Project Department of the Group, Mr Yu Guohui, initialled for his organisation.
The Government of Ghana (GoG) is contributing US$18 million for the project.
Dr Oteng-Adjei said the execution of the project was in fulfilment of a promise  President J. E. A. Mills made to the people of the Northern Region when he visited parts of the area last year on a familiarisation tour.
The project, he added, formed part of the  US$300 million to be used to connect about 1,400 communities in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions to the national grid.
He explained that the move to improve the electricity capacity in the three regions was based on a recent assessment carried out by the ministry, which revealed that those areas fell below the national average.
The Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, with 43.52 per cent, 31.95 per cent and 30.39 per cent accessibility rates, respectively, fall below the required national average figure of 66.70 per cent.
To that end, Dr Oteng-Adjei stated that the government had resolved to raise the electricity accessibility rates of those regions to that of the national average in line with the policy of the national electrification programme which was aimed at extending electricity to all parts of the country by the year 2020.
Mr Guohui, for his part, pledged the commitment of his outfit to execute the project to the expectation of the government.
The minister used the occasion to deny reports that Ghana sold the first barrel of its petroleum products at US$67, which was far below the global market price.
He explained that Ghana was lifting oil for the first time since the discovery of the resource, and in line with standard practice, the country rather enjoyed a discount of between US$2 and US$4 on the market.

Extension officers deployed to cocoa growing areas

TWO hundred and fifty extension agents and officers have been deployed to the 52 cocoa-growing districts in the country to promote international best practice on cocoa farms.
The programme, which forms part of the Cocoa Extension Public-Private-Partnership, is a collaborative effort among the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), the West Africa Fair Fruit, Kuapa Kokoo and Cadbury which seek to support the extension services COCOBOD renders to cocoa farmers.
The Director in charge of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership in Ghana, Mrs Yaa Peprah Amekugi, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic when she led a 10-member team of young Cadbury cocoa ambassadors to pay a courtesy call on the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Ransford Tetteh, last Friday.
Also at the meeting was the Editor of the Graphic Business, Mr Lloyd Evans, who offered some responses to the ambassadors on issues bordering on the cocoa sector. 
Under the partnership, Mrs Amekugi said, COCOBOD, through the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), was in the process of developing a cocoa training programme for the agents to ensure that standard practice was observed in cocoa communities.
The visit of the young ambassadors to the offices of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) was to court the support of the company, through its stable of newspapers, especially the Daily Graphic and the Junior Graphic, to propagate the mission of the young ambassadors who are to engage the youth towards sensitising them to the need to take up cocoa farming, since it is a profitable venture.
The ambassadors, who were recruited after a rigorous selection process from among hundreds of interested youth, are students of tertiary institutions who use their vacation period to visit cocoa communities in their respective assigned regions to embark on their campaign.
One of the ambassadors, Nana Ama Addae-Boahene, a student of the Central University College, said as ambassadors, they were expected to visit cocoa communities in regions they to which they had been assigned to spend time with members of the community, particularly the youth, with the message that cocoa farming could serve as an alternative source of income, hence the need to embrace it.
Mrs Amekugi had earlier stated that the main programme was geared towards generating income for farmers on a sustainable basis with support from COCOBOD and that through competitive bidding, cocoa communities that required solar power to operate could be adequately funded.
Mr Tetteh, who pledged the Daily Graphic’s support to the cause of the ambassadors, entreated them to write well thought-out stories on their own by periodically contributing articles and other forms of information on their work as a means of engaging the youth on the issues.
He, however, expressed concern over the unwillingness of the authorities at COCOBOD to make relevant information in the cocoa sector available to the media, saying that that approach was not in the interest of the public.
Touching on February 14 which has been set aside as the National Chocolate Day, Mr Tetteh said the celebration of the event, launched about three years ago, appeared to be restricted only to the regional capitals, leaving out the countryside.
He said the quest to see the growth of the cocoa industry could be undermined if the trend continued.
Mr Evans, for his part, warned against paying more attention to the recently discovered oil and gas sector, at the expense of the agricultural sector, particularly cocoa.
He further cautioned against going the path of other African countries that were worse off today because they neglected their traditional foreign exchange earning sectors when they discovered oil and other natural resources.

Properties worth GH¢10m lost in fire

PROPERTIES valued at GH¢10 million, were destroyed in 2010 as a result of 2,060 fire outbreaks throughout the country, the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has said.
Properties lost in 2009 was valued at GH¢7 million.
The Ashanti Region recorded the highest with a total of 467 fire outbreaks in 2010, while the Volta Region registered  seven outbreaks, the lowest for the year.
The Brong Ahafo Region recorded the second highest with 202 fire outbreaks while the Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, Northern and Tema Regions registered 175, 113, 455, 96 and 147 fire outbreaks respectively.
The rest are Upper East; 97, Upper West; 66, Volta; seven and Western; 133, while personnel from the GNFS Headquarters in Accra attended to 102 fires in the Greater Accra Region.
Explaining the major causes of the fire outbreaks in interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the GNFS, Mr Prince Billy Anaglate, attributed the causes of the outbreaks to overloading of electrical gadgets.
While imploring members of the public to, as a matter of urgency, adopt fire safety culture, Mr Anaglate cautioned institutions to avoid placing magnifying glasses at open places since they were capable of igniting fires when they come into contact with sun-rays.
Meanwhile, in readiness for the hammattan season, the GNFS has intensified its fire safety education, especially in the rural areas and northern Ghana, in an effort to reduce the incidence of bush fires.

Contractors appeal for more time

CONTRACTORS working on the US$30 million Akatsi-Aflao highway project have appeal for an additional nine-month extension to enable them to complete the project, which is already behind schedule.
The 56-km project, which is 63 per cent complete and jointly sponsored by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Government of Ghana (GoG), is scheduled for completion by August 15, 2011 but because of technical challenges, the contractors, China Geo Engineering Limited, need an extension to address those difficulties.
The Resident Engineer at Conterra Limited, the consulting firm for the contractors, Mr Rex Edeckor, made the appeal when the Roads and Highways Minister, Mr Joe Gidisu, paid a familiarisation tour to acquaint himself with some ongoing road projects in the Volta Region last Thursday.
The tour took the minister to inspect the first leg of the Akatsi-Agbozume through to Aflao stretch, the 2.8-km Abor-Anyako road and the 3.23-km Anyako-Seva road project in the Keta municipality, among other places.
Commenting on the Akatsi-Aflao project, Mr Gidisu, who was accompanied by Mr Alex Segbefia, a Deputy Chief of Staff, officials from both the Department of Feeder Roads (DFR) and the Department of Urban Roads and some district chief executives (DCEs), said the GoG had provided counterpart funding to ensure an expeditious execution of the project.
While promising the contractors that the government would release the outstanding GH¢1.6 million balance left in order for the project to continue, he called on them to honour their part of the deal.
The Volta Regional Manager of the DFR, Mr Roosevelt O. Otoo, in charge of the GH¢2.8 million Abor-Anyako-Seva road project, said the road was currently being re-packaged to the surfacing level to make it more compact to resist the torrential rains that often destroyed roads.
On the Anyako-Seva stretch, an official from the DFR, Nii Klemesu Ashong, told Mr Gidisu and his entourage that before the road was constructed, residents of the area used boats to cross the lagoon from one town to another until a road was created in the middle of the lagoon, using gibeon baskets to block the lagoon at both sides to prevent it from over flowing its banks onto the road.  
Mr Gidisu lauded the project engineers in the region and expressed the commitment of the government to ensure that all road projects currently ongoing in the country were completed on schedule to bring relief to Ghanaians.

UNICOF advocates efficient public transport system

THE leadership of the Union of Industry, Commerce and Finance Workers (UNICOF) of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), is advocating a comprehensive transport system to mitigate the impact of fuel price hikes on the vulnerable.
Reacting to the recent upward adjustment of prices of petroleum products, the General Secretary of the union, Mr Francis Kofi Davor, told the Daily Graphic in Accra that the presence of an efficient mass transport system would cushion the vulnerable, who suffer most from the effects of such hikes.
He was of the belief that most of the measures adopted by the transport companies to help address the traffic situation were ad hoc in nature and rather proposed a long-term approach to making access to transport a permanent feature in Ghana.
“With an efficient transport system in place the perennial road traffic accidents on our roads would be abated,” Mr Davor added.   
He further called on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to develop an intercity transport system at the local level as a first step to addressing the situation. 
He said while owners of private vehicles could manage increases in petroleum products, the vast majority of the public who depended on public transport were the most affected, stressing that the current poor state of affairs in the transport sector further rendered them vulnerable.
Touching on the impact of the increase on industry, Mr Davor averred that the increased adjustment had serious implications for small businesses, since they lack the capacity to stay in business and be competitive.
He proposed that for industry to be cushioned against such increases it was imperative for the government to introduce incentives such as tax holidays to industries for the impact to be minimised and opposed the idea of passing the rising cost of petroleum products on the international market to the consumer.
The current UNICOF membership stands about 12,000 nationwide.  

MMT to increase fleet of buses

THE Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT) is to introduce an additional 150 buses to augment its fleet to provide more reliable, efficient and affordable transport services to the public this year.
Out of the 150,  100 buses are being procured from the company’s internally generated funds while the remaining 50 will be supplied by the government. 
Already,  the company has engaged Chinese engineers to work on more than 100 of its Yaxin buses which are now grounded to bring about 50 of them on the road by April, this year.
The acting Managing Director (MD) of the MMT, Mr Maxwell Kofi Awuku, in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, said the grounded Yaxin buses were to be fixed with automated transmission systems to replace the manual ones to ensure the availability of the buses all-year round.
Since his assumption of office about six months ago, Mr Awuku said, a number of interventions, including the recruitment of substantive managers, had been put in place to revitalise the operations of the company.
Last year, the MMT launched a campaign, ‘Operation Show Your Ticket’, in an attempt to deal with ticket malpractices.
The company, in its earlier attempts to manage the problem, introduced several interventions, including Mystery Guest, random ticket inspection, the use of fare chart and reward scheme for staff members who exhibited exemplary conduct in the discharge of their duties.
Mr Awuku said the company under his stewardship would seek to end the situation where passengers waited for too long before being served.
For commuters in the Central Business District of Accra, Mr Awuku said the MMT had extended the closing time of its buses to help clear the backlog of commuters who often got stranded during the peak period.
He added that during the festive season, MMT buses were brought from  the Ashanti Region to augment those in Accra to help contain the pressure during the Yuletide.
Explaining, Mr Awuku said he had received reports where intolerant commuters shouted at drivers to drive  beyond the speed limit of 80 km/h and cautioned against such behaviour, since it had the tendency to distract the driver.
He said with the coming of the new buses the MMT would increase its routes to meet the growing number of commuters across the country.
The MMT, with the current fleet of buses, plies 265 routes from 16 branches and has extended services from Accra-Tema metropolitan areas to all the regional capitals.
Meanwhile, the MMT has not increased its transport fares despite the 18 per cent increase adjustment of commercial transport fares announced by the  Ghana Road Transport Co-ordinating Council following the 30 per cent increase of petroleum products.

      

  

Honda team to train local riders

A THREE-member delegation from the Singapore Safety Driving Centre Limited (SSDC), a subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company, is in the country to train riders/drivers in the security organisations on modern trends of safe and skilful driving to raise riding standards to the highest level.
Eighty riders drawn from the security agencies including the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana National Fire Service and personnel from the Castle are expected to participate in the 20-day exercise which begins on Tuesday, January 11, 2011.
The training is expected to equip riders with the ability to cope with emergencies, as well as develop the confidence required under any road, weather and traffic regulations.
Briefing the Daily Graphic on their arrival at the VVIP Lounge at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra yesterday, the Assistant Operations Manager of SSDC, Mr Ramani Muthu, said the aim of his outfit, which often trained riders/drivers from corporate institutions, was to promote road safety among riders/drivers through the observance of road traffic regulations.
The SSDC, he indicated, had over the years extended its overseas assignments to cover the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and India and that his current visit to Ghana marked his second since 2005, during which 30 riders from the security services were offered training.
Mr Muthu further explained that his outfit particularly offered training to police escort riders and traffic police officers, stressing that at the end of the training programme, participants would be equipped with modern safety knowledge and skills as a means to raising their safety consciousness.
The Managing Director of Overseas Union Limited, distributors of Honda motorcycles and power products division of Honda Motor Company Limited,  Tokyo, Japan  and all its plants worldwide, Mr Francis Yao Dawson, explained that the SSDC was contracted to enhance the skills of police escort riders and train new ones to replace ageing riders.
According to the course content, the participants will, among other  areas, be trained in convoy organisation and manoeuvres, which entails preparation and management of machine, essential attitudes and developing sound judgement.

Guard information centre for Jubilee Field

A COAST guard network information centre is to be established at the Jubilee Field in the Western Region to expose the activities of pirates and prevent attacks from them.
The information centre would also expose the dumping of hazardous materials along the country's coast lines.
The Deputy Director at the Sub-Division for Maritime Security and Facilitation of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), Mr Chris Trelawny, told the Daily Graphic at a regional maritime workshop held in Accra that “The coming into existence of the network is refreshing for Ghana, particularly in the Jubilee Field as the country would be protected against any possible external attack in view of the production of oil on a commercial scale”.
He stated that a similar information centre would be set up in Angola.
Mr Trelawny said the selection of Ghana and Angola as the information centres for the Western and Central African States would be given a final seal this month when Transport Ministers meet in Senegal to append their signature to a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
He said the formation of the national maritime security committees would strengthen regional co-operation for purposes of protecting the marine environment and ensuring maritime security and safety towards sustainable economic development for Africa.
Mr Trelawny said the selection of the two countries which were to serve as information sharing hubs chosen from among 25 countries in West and Central Africa situated along the coast forms part of preparations towards the establishment of an integrated coast guard networks for the region to ensure a total protection of its territorial waters against pirates and terrorists activities.
The ceremony, which was jointly organised by the Maritime Organisaton for West and Central Africa (MOWCA), the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), assembled personalities from member countries of the MOWCA to deliberate on the issues at hand and forge a way forward, key among which was the setting up of the coastal guard network.
Earlier, the Deputy Minister of Transport, Mrs Dzifa Aku Attivor, acknowledged the contributions of the various participating countries for their readiness to fight maritime-related crimes.
The Director General of the GMA, Mr Issaka Peter Azuma, reiterated the commitment of his outfit to collaborate with international organisations on maritime affairs and play an advocacy role to ensure that the sub-region did not become a safe-haven for maritime crime, dumping of toxic chemicals and substandard ships.

Kotoka to get perishable cargo centre

THE sod has been cut for work to commence on the construction of a US$ 2.473-million perishable cargo centre (PCC) at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to enable exporters to maintain produce quality to meet standards of the export market.
The PCC, which forms part of an integrated cold chain for the horticultural sub-sector, is expected to achieve better produce quality and higher export market prices.
It is funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCA) of the US with the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) in Ghana being the implementing agency.
The Managing Director of the Ghana Airports Company Limited, Mrs Doreen Owusu-Fianko, in her remarks in Accra yesterday, said the construction of the PCC marked the beginning of activities at the KIA to usher in the President’s declaration of 2011 as a year of action.
The project, she noted, formed part of the government’s grand agenda to reduce rural poverty through interventions targeted at agriculture, transportation and social infrastructure through the MiDA.
In line with the country’s vision to be the hub and gateway to the West Africa sub-region, Mrs Owusu-Fianko observed, the provision of the PCC fell within the KIA’s facility strategy of providing world class gateway infrastructure and operations at the airport.
“With the provision of such a facility, Ghana is well positioned to attract both local and foreign investment in the export business specifically for agriculture and horticulture products,” she added.
She announced the intention of her outfit to support the provision of a world class global cargo village at the KIA by developing projects which would enhance cargo operation through private-public partnerships such as a transhipment cargo centre and an office complex for freight forwarders, couriers and logistics operators at the village.
The Deputy Vice President in charge of West Africa in the Department of Compact Operations at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCA), Mr Jonathan Bloom, expressed delight at the start of the project and stated that the purpose of the US$547-million millennium challenge account compact between the US and Ghana was to reduce poverty through agricultural transformation.
Describing the PCC as a central part of that transformation, Mr Bloom said the PCC and other compact investments would help to strengthen Ghana’s agricultural production, enhance its competitiveness and promote public-private partnership in the agricultural sector.
Through the compact more than 500,000 farmers, according to Mr Bloom, had been successfully trained, with smallholder farmers learning about the value chain approach, including diversifying their production from exclusively food crops to a mixture of food and cash crops.
There were supporting comments from Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, Ms Hannah Tetteh and Mr Mike Hammah, the Ministers of Food and Agriculture, Trade and Industry and Transport respectively.

Tetteh Quashie Mallam road project on course

WORK on the Tetteh Quarshie-Mallam highway expansion project, which is one of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) projects, is on course and the government has given the assurance to meet the completion date of February, 2012.
However, work on certain portions of the project, particularly along the Tetteh Quashie-Dzorwulu stretch, is being hampered by the seemingly slow pace of relocating underground water pipes and electricity poles.
The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Joe Gidisu, made this known to journalists in Accra, when the Deputy Vice President in charge of West Africa in the Department of Compact Operations at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCA), Mr Jonathan Bloom, paid a courtesy call on him on Tuesday.
Mr Bloom is in the country to acquaint himself with the progress of work on the MCA projects, as well as ascertain at firsthand any teething problems.
Mr Gidisu, who expressed the government’s commitment to overcoming the challenges facing the project in order to meet the scheduled deadline, said for the first time, a counterpart funding was earmarked in last year’s budget to ensure that the project ran smoothly.
Earlier, the minister briefed the delegation from the MCA, led by the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy, Julie Furuta-Toy, assuring them of the government’s commitment to fulfilling its part of the bargain to ensure the successful completion of the project.
He said the government was conscious of the time-bound nature of the project and expressed appreciation to the US government for lending support to Ghana in the area of poverty alleviation.
Mr Bloom, who was accompanied by the Resident Country Director of the MCA, Katerina S. Ntep, commended the Government of Ghana for making judicious use of the resources voted for the project.
He pledged further support to the government in areas that would help alleviate poverty.
With more than US$417 million committed to the project, it aims to facilitate the growth of agriculture, promote access to social services and support an expansion of Ghana’s export-directed horticulture base beyond current production.

Drivers, passengers fight over new fares

THERE was confusion between drivers and passengers at some lorry stations in the Accra metropolis over arbitrary increases in transport fares following the upward adjustment of the prices of some petroleum products.
At the Achimota Terminal, there were fisticuffs between some commuters and drivers’ mates when drivers attempted to unilaterally charge fares above the approved 18 per cent announced by road transport operators.
Hitherto, the trotro fare from Achimota to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle had been 30Gp, but some drivers’ mates attempted to charge 40Gp this morning, a development which angered passengers, resulting in confusion at the station.
A driver’s mate of a trotro which plies the Lapaz-Amasaman route, Gideon Appiah, told the Daily Graphic that the fare had now been increased from 55Gp to 65Gp and noted that some drivers plying the same route had ignored the approved fare and were charging 80Gp, to the displeasure of passengers.
The Chairman of the Madina-Adenta-Ashongman branch of the GPRTU, Mr Emmanuel K. Kassah, blamed the confusion on the absence of the one pesewa coins in the system.
He explained that instead of adding 5Gp to the new fares, the one pesewa coins could have been used to make up for any additions, but since the one pesewa coins were not in circulation, 5Gp was added to the fare to round it up.
According to Mr Kassah, the Madina-Adenta-Ashongman Station had not recorded any confusion, explaining that there was only an additional 5Gp increase in the fares and indicated that passengers were satisfied with that.
The Chairman of the Ghana Road Transport Co-ordinating Council, Mr Matthew Hayford, in an interview, cautioned against any arbitrary fares, saying all must abide by the agreed 18 per cent fare adjustment.

Ship docks to load first Jubilee oil

THE first ship to unload oil from the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah at the Jubilee Field docked at the anchorage of the Tema Port in the early hours of yesterday.
The ship, Mt Spike, has Hull Blyth Limited as its local agent.
Officials of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) are expected to inspect the ship to ensure that it conforms to international and safety standards before it could be dispatched to the Jubilee Field.
Confirming the arrival of the ship to the Daily Graphic in Accra, the Communications Director of the GMA, Mrs Eleanor Pratt, said the vessel could only be dispatched to the Jubilee Field after it had met all international specifications and requirements.
She expressed the commitment of the GMA to ensure that all ships that arrived in the country bound for the Jubilee Field to offload processed oil adhered to internationally acknowledged benchmarks in the oil industry.
The Deputy Director of Surveys and Inspection at the GMA, Mr William Eson Thompson, who led a team to inspect the Malta-registered vessel, indicated in an interview that the ship is 248 metres long and 43.8 metres wide and added that it last docked in Libya.
President J.E.A. Mills, on December 15, 2010, symbolically turned the wheel on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah to signify the beginning of commercial oil production on the Jubilee Field, the first in the history of Ghana.
He reaffirmed his commitment to transparency and prudent management of the oil revenue for the benefit of all Ghanaians.