A High Court in Accra has slated September 18, to hear writ of mandamus of embattled Indian businessman against the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).
On August 25, this year, the court ordered the GIS to grant Mr Ashok Kumar Sivaram a temporal permit to enable him to fight for his business and other legal matters before the court.
At today’s hearing the GIS through a State Attorney, Ms Jasmine Armah informed the court that the Service had given the businessman a Passport Retention Slip which would last for 30 days.
Mr Sivaram is therefore expected to use the slip pending the denial or offering of residence and work permit by the GIS to him.
Mr Gary Nimako, Counsel for the Businessman, told the court that he did not know the status of his client now, because the issuance of a Passport Retention Slip could not constitute temporal Residence and Work permit.
According to him, the GIS had misrepresented the facts as well defy the court orders by offering his client the Passport Retention slip.
Mr Nimako therefore prayed the court to put the Head of Legal, GIS in the witness box so he could be cross-examined on the facts.
The Court after demanding to know the difference between a Passport Retention slip and what constitute a temporal or permanent Residence and Working permit, adjourned the matter to September 18 to hear the writ of Mandamus.
The trial judge, Mrs Naa Adoley Azu, however took a swipe at Ms Armah after she had on several instances laughed after answering questions from the Judge.
“Stop giggling. This is not funny. Your conduct in other courts could attract contempt.”
The judge further stated that Ghana was sending wrong impressions out there if some state institution would use state power capriciously.
On June 1, this year, the GIS following an order by the Interior Ministry deported Mr Sivaram on the premise that he had forged his marriage certificate in an application for citizenship.
The Indian businessman therefore contested his deportation by filing a judicial review through an order of Certiorari.
Mr Justice Kweku Ackah-Boafo upheld the businessman’s application and quashed his deportation order on July 31, this year on the grounds that the Interior Ministry exceeded its jurisdiction.
Mr Sivaram was deported by the GIS on June 1, 2017, following an order by Mr Dery on the basis that he used a forged marriage certificate to support his application for citizenship.
Not happy with the deportation, lawyers for Mr Sivaram filed an application for judicial review by way of certiorari for the order to be nullified by the Accra High Court.
GNA
Indian businessman writ vs. GIS slated for Sept. 18
VOICE Ghana gives support to PWDs on local level development
VOICE Ghana, a disability focused non-governmental organisations with support from STAR-Ghana is promoting “stronger voice” for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in local level development and decision making processes.
The initiative funded by the UKAID, DANIDA and the European Union is targeted at the Nkwanta South, Nkwanta North, Krachi East, Akatsi North and Central Tongo districts in the Volta region.
Mr Francis Ansong, the Executive Director of VOICE Ghana, said 15 disability self-help groups in the five targeted districts were already benefitting from the GHS122, 000 project funds.
He said each of the beneficiary self-help groups had selected one influential member in their respective communities as “Inclusion Ambassadors” to support “amplify” their voice at both the community and district assembly levels.
Mr Ansong said the project would also facilitate the process for Development Planning Officers from each of the target districts to hold meetings with beneficiaries to pick one key development priority for inclusion in the 2018-2021 Medium Term Development Plans for District Assemblies.
Mr Charles Nyante, Programmes Manager, VOICE Ghana, said response from the assemblies had been favourable, adding that, a disability caucus would be formed in the assemblies to help champion their cause.
Mr Nyante said: “we shall link-up inclusion ambassadors with disability caucus at each Assembly so that, together, they can support PWDs to demand benefits from provisions of public goods and services at the community and assembly levels”.
GNA
UNICEF’s Performance Based Funding to MMDAs Commended
Amidu Chinnia Issahaku, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister has commended the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for basing its funding of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) strictly on performance.
“I personally think that it is a very good initiative since it will go a long way to ensure that Assemblies sit up and work harder,” he said.
Mr. Issahaku gave the commendation during a UNICEF’s orientation meeting with the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and the Leadership of MMDAs in Wa.
He assured that the RCC would continue to monitor the MMDAs in the implementation of programmes and projects and will hold responsible any MMDA that failed to live up to expectation.
The Deputy Regional Minister commended UNICEF for supporting the region with US$15,000 towards the implementation of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes as well as supporting the scaling up of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) concept in the region.
“We are grateful to UNICEF and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) for supporting the region with $3m to reduce high child mortality rate in the region”, he said.
He said other areas UNICEF had supported the region included the promotion of gender equality and basic education, HIV and AIDS, child protection, capacity building for MMDAs and support to the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) Zone to improve Monitoring and Evaluation systems.
Mr. Issahaku noted that in spite of numerous interventions, some worrying issues such as inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities; increasing HIV and AIDS prevalence; inadequate use of iodized salt, low birth and death registration; and unsatisfactory health indicators still faced children and mothers in the region.
While expressing hope that the UNICEF’s new project would tackle some of the worrying issues, he also appealed to other development partners to come to the aid of the region.
Madam Margaret Gwada, UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Tamale noted that the current UNICEF programme which was signed in 2012 had been extended to February 2018.
She explained that the new UNICEF Country Programme would start from 2018 to 2022, and the orientation programme was therefore meant to mobilise the support of the Council Members to help achieve their objectives.
Madam Gwada said UNICEF had concentrated its work in Northern Ghana to help deprived children in the region, noting that the wealth of a nation was determined by the health of its children.
Madam Evelyn Ngaanuma, UNICEF Knowledge Management Officer at the Tamale Office, in a presentation said in Ghana, one out of every five girls got married before their 18th birthday, while in Northern Ghana the situation was one out of every three girls.
The situation in the Upper West Region she explained was three out of every 10 girls.
GNA
Ghana find ways to raise income from non-traditional export
The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) is strengthening its presence across the various districts as part of
an aggressive push to substantially raise earnings from non-traditional exports.
Mr. Eric Amoako Twum, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO),said the focus was to turn the districts into strategic enclaves of
export development activities, especially the agro-based products. He was speaking at a meeting held with Metropolitan, Municipal and
District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the Ashanti Region to discuss the implementation of the National Export Promotion Strategy
vis-à-vis one district-one-exportable product. It formed part of series of consultation with the districts to
solicit their inputs into the implementation of the strategy. Already, Eastern, Brong-Ahafo, Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West had been covered. Mr. Twum repeated that GEPA was eager to identify, develop and
promote at least on exportable product in every district.
This, he said, would complement the government’s flagship policy of one-district-one-factory.
He spoke of the need to take the necessary steps to avoid going down the path of states that neglected other sectors after discovering oil.
The non-traditional exports, he indicated “provide more jobs and security than the oil will do”.
Mr. Twum reiterated their determination to go the extra mile to achieve the target of US$10 billion in non-traditional export earnings in four years. He added that the country had all it took to become the export hub of the sub-region.
He cited fertile lands combined with industrious people and committed leadership at all levels and said these could transform Ghana’s economic fortunes.He noted that Ashanti had immense potentials for agribusiness, services and related export value chains and said that should challenge the MMDCEs to do everything to transform the region into an export powerhouse.
Mr. Maxwell Osei Kusi, GEPA Director of Research and Information, said priority was being placed on products including
processed cocoa, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, fresh or chilled processed fish, vegetable oil and seed, tree crops, oil, shea, cashew and palm oil.
They were also focusing on root crops, processed gold and apparel.
GNA
All Set for Tamale’s Maiden Founders’ Day Event
VKL Entertainments in collaboration with Discovery Center has scheduled an entertainment event to be held in Tamale in honour of founders of the country, who came from the northern parts of the country.
The event dubbed: “Founders day native custom, pool side party,” is slated for September 21 and some activities lined-up include the display of various northern cultural dance, fashion show, talk-show on the histo-generic and political economy of Ghana, inter-tribes swimming competition and fun games.
A statement issued by VKL Entertainments signed by its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Prince Henry and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale said “as we celebrate the founding fathers of Ghana’s independence, we want to celebrate with you, northerners who contributed to the founding and democratic development of Ghana.”
The statement named some of the northern personalities, who contributed towards the country’s independence and democratic development as Simon Diedong Dombo, then Duori Naa of the then Upper Region, Mumuni Bawumia (Father of current Vice President, Dr Bawumia), Emmanuel Adama Mahama (Father of former President Mahama), Imoru Egala, Yakubu Tali, then Tolon Naa, and Dr Hila Liman amongst others.
It said the event would seek to ensure unity amongst all northerners regardless of their political affiliation.
GNA
IGAD Praised for Advancing Africa’s Peace and Security
Mr Abdalla Hamdok, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), has lauded the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) for holding regular meetings to discuss the root causes of problems facing the region.
A report made available to the Ghana News Agency said, addressing the opening session of the Constitutive Meeting of the IGAD Regional Strategic Dialogue Forum in Addis Ababa, Mr Hamdok said such meetings enhance better understanding and analysis to advance peace, security, economic development and governance efforts in the region.
“It is in this context that this constitutive meeting of the IGAD Strategic Dialogue heralds an important step in the right direction to provide insights and produce actionable policy recommendations on the various dimensions of issues under consideration,” Mr Hamdok, who’s also the ECA Chief Economist, said.
He said the inter-linkages between peace, security and development could not be overstressed as evidence abounds adding that peace and prosperity ultimately feed on each other.
“On another note, depressing narratives can also be observed on IGAD Region’s numerous socio-economic, political and security challenges; all of which usually mirror the traditional negative imagery on Africa,” he said.
However, Mr Hamdok said, in spite of all their troubles, IGAD countries have added remarkable momentum to Africa’s recent image makeover and its new narrative of a continent on the rise against the backdrop of strong economic growth rates averaging five percent during the last decade and half. The countries include Ethiopia and Djibouti.
He said in the process to establish an efficient strategic dialogue forum, there is the need to provide high-level guidance in three areas, including identifying strategies to ensure that the direction of intellectual exchanges and debates bears the potential to ultimately yield consensus among the various key actors in the region.
“There’s also need to determine the scope of thematic issues to be covered for addressing regional and transboundary trends and to define the nature of the cross-sectoral issues that will enhance convergence between the intellectual, diplomatic and political leadership communities,” said Mr Hamdok.
He said the ECA valued the fruitful cooperation it has long enjoyed with IGAD and, the complex and multifaceted role IGAD is called to play as an architect and implementer for the emergence of a politically stable, well governed, economically vibrant and integrated IGAD Region.
The two-day constitutive meeting is being held in preparation for the establishment of the IGAD Strategic Dialogue on the state of peace and security in the region or IGAD Strategic Dialogue 2017.
The IGAD 2017 Strategic Dialogue seeks to establish a platform for a comprehensive and thorough discussion on the peace and security challenges facing the region by bringing all stakeholders together to jointly reflect on them and propose remedies.
At least 32 regional experts are attending the constitutive meeting in Addis Ababa.
IGAD was created in 1996 to succeed the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development that was founded in 1986 to deal with issues related to drought and desertification in the horn of Africa.
The regional block came to existence with a new name, organizational structure and a revitalized ambition of expanded cooperation among its member States with a mission to assist and complement the efforts of the member States to achieve food security and environmental protection, peace and security, and economic cooperation and integration in the region.
GNA
Ghana’s Speedy Development Requires Efficient Resource Management
Madam Sheilla Kangberee, the Head of Export Diversification and Trade Facilitation at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, says the nation requires efficient management of capital and human resources to improve the lots of Ghanaians.
She said the nation had been endowed with many resources and should not rely on foreign aid to transform the economy and, thus, asked Ghanaians to support the President’s agenda of Ghana beyond aid.
She noted that the Government’s economic transformational agenda would only become a reality if there were well-structured programmes and policies in place to drive it.
Madam Kangberee said this at the launch of the Economic, Trade and Investment Bureau organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, in Accra.
The two-day event is on the theme: “The New Dynamics of Economic Diplomacy: Strategies to Maximise Investments, Trade, Culture and Tourism Potentials of Ghana.
Madam Kangberee said the Ministry had instituted plans and programmes geared towards supporting government’s economic transformational agenda.
They included enhancing the production capacity of the industries for domestic and export markets, creating a fair and transparent export-import regime, designing measures to open new markets and increase the volume of the non-traditional exports.
Others are re-structuring key institutions to become more competitive to leverage export opportunities, support access market for made-in-Ghana products, improve product quality of locally-manufactured products to meet international standards, as well as attract direct foreign investment in export oriented manufacturing sector.
Madam Kangberee expressed firm belief that these measures would help the nation to become a self-dependent economy that would ensure prosperity for all Ghanaians.
Mr Yoofi Grant, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, during a panel discussion, called for attitudinal change by Ghanaians, adding that, there should be the right people at the right positions to implement government policies.
He said the Fiscal Administration Act required that persons in charge of institutions that use State funds should be held responsible for any financial malfeasance.
“For instance, if I, Yoofi Grant, the head of GIPC, spends more than my budget, I can go to jail, especially when it is proven that I spent the funds recklessly,” he emphasised.
Mr Grant expressed the belief that the implementation of the national database and digital addressing system would ensure that every individual in the country could easily be traced, which would ensure sanity in business transactions.
He said that promoting digital economy and removing human interface in public transactions would reduce bribery and corruption, which would also improve quality service delivery to the citizenry.
However, he said, all these measures would only be achieved, if Ghanaians change their attitudes and exhibit positive behaviours in line with government’s transformational agenda.
GNA
GIJ Holds Matriculation Ceremony for Freshers
Dr Wilberforce Dzisah, the Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), has assured new students of the Institute of the management’s commitment to get the hostel back on track once the new governing council is inaugurated.
He said although the plan to get private investors or estate developers to construct the hostels at the Institute’s new site had suffered a temporary setback, management was determined to quicken the process as soon as the Council was in place.
He gave the assurance when the Institute formally admitted new students to its Masters, Degree and Diploma programmes at the 17th matriculation ceremony in Accra.
“With the support and backing of the Council, we shall re-strategise as to possible funding options to adopt in order to fulfil this all important and deserving vision,” he stated.
A total of 1,750 undergraduate students, comprising 1,100 degree and 50 Diploma students were admitted this academic year, representing a 39 percent increase over the 1260 students admitted in the 2016/2017 academic year.
At the graduate level, 300 students were offered admission to the four Master’s programmes in Journalism, Media Management, Public Relations and Development Communication, from the 600 applications received.
“Due to the high level of patronage of our Graduate programmes, the Institute decided to run a weekend school with two of the flagship programmes-Public Relations and Development Communication, alongside the four regular programmes,” he said.
Dr Dzisah said the tightening of its selection processes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels was indicative of its commitment to ensure the highest standards for its programmes.
He urged the students not to see their admission as an end in itself but the beginning of a long but productive journey, provided that they imbibed the tenets of discipline and hard work.
“Certificates are not like divine objects to be handed down to you from a Mosaic hill. I therefore entreat you to take your studies seriously and not be dazzled by the illusionist mirrors around you which are mostly short-lived,” he said.
GNA
Mampong Assembly to Put Up More Classroom Blocks
The Asante-Mampong Municipal Assembly is taking deliberate steps to expand access to education through the construction of more classroom structures.
Mr. Thomas Appiah-Kubi, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said creating adequate space for effective teaching and learning had been made a major priority.
In line with this, it was already building a block of eight classrooms for the Bunoso M/A primary, a six-unit classroom block with office, computer laboratory and washrooms for Patase-Sesiase-Kokoben M/A basic school and a four-unit classroom block with office and store for the Dwaaho basic school.
Speaking after an inspection of the structures, he said these would be ready before the close of the year.
He used the occasion to announce financial assistance package for 133 selected students in senior high schools (SHS) and tertiary institutions.
They were going to receive a total of GH?30,000.00 to take care of their school needs.
Mr. Appiah-Kubi also hinted of the re-start of construction works on three abandoned Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds.
These are sited at Bunoso, Atonsuagya and Sukruwa.
The MCE added that the assembly was using internally-generated revenue and part of its share of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to get these completed.
He praised the assembly members, the heads of department, the chiefs and unit committees for working together to bring development to the people.
Nana Yaw Adade Brenya, the chief of Bunoso, appealed to the assembly to build a teachers accommodation to end the situation where teachers had been making a daily round trip of about 24 kilometres to teach in the community.
They are forced to live in Mampong because they cannot find decent accommodation at the place.
GNA
Phanes Group Launches Solar Programme to Enhance Africa’s Energy Output
Phanes Group, an integrated end-to-end solar provider, has launched its first Solar Incubator programme, aimed at identifying PV projects of potential in sub-Saharan Africa by providing access to funding, commercial and technical knowledge.
The initiative, ‘The PV Solar Incubator, Your Project, Our Expertise, for a Sustainable Future,’ would be held in partnership with Hogan Lovells, Proparco, responsAbility, RINA Consulting and Solarplaza.
A statement from Phanes Group, therefore, encouraged PV developers to submit proposals for projects that were based in sub-Saharan Africa, and had a clear Corporate Social Responsibility component.
It said the deadline to submit projects via Phanes Group’s website for evaluation and shortlisting ends on October 1, 2017.
Shortlisted candidates would be invited to pitch their projects to an expert panel comprised of the incubator’s partner organisations at Solarplaza’s “Unlocking Solar Capital Africa” conference in Côte d’Ivoire, on October 25 – 26.
It comes as part of Phanes Group’s core strategy to collaborate with Africa-focused counterparties, such as local project owners, governments, and developers on projects that seek to create a sustainable future for urban and rural communities across the sub-Saharan region.
“Clean energy has the potential to transform sub-Saharan Africa for years to come, but successfully implemented PV solar projects require a diverse mix of expertise and knowledge to bring them to financial close,” said Martin Haupts, CEO, Phanes Group.
“We believe the Phanes Group Solar Incubator – in collaboration with our partners – will leverage untapped local PV potential, and create more opportunities for local projects.
Combined with our strengths in developing bankable solutions for clean, affordable energy and efforts in CSR, the incubator initiative can help to address local needs that haven’t yet been met.”
Christopher Cross of the law firm, Hogan Lovells, who would be part of the evaluation panel at the event, said: “We are both honoured and excited to be invited to take part in an on-the-ground initiative such as this.
“The Solar Incubator seeks to foster both local innovation and investment to bring potential opportunities to fruition for the social and economic benefit of the region and its people.”
There are currently more than 620 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living without electricity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which works to ensure global access to reliable, affordable and clean energy.
This initiative aims to support developers not just in the funding phase, but throughout the project development and delivery phases, to ensure important, CSR-focused projects are brought to financial close.
Phanes Group, along with its partners, would provide PV developers with access to a reliable partner that would support them in reaching bankability.
Through an initial incubator phase, extensive mentorship, and access to the right network, this year’s candidates would have an opportunity to roll-out a sustainable energy solution in their community, as well as develop a lasting relationship with an end-to-end, integrated solar expert.
Joseph Nganga, Executive Director, responsAbility Renewable Energy Holding, another participating partner, said, “We aim to finance ideas with growth potential and strong entrepreneurial spirit, that successfully serve broad segments of the population.
This is why we are excited to be collaborating with Phanes Group on this incubator, and looking forward to our continued partnership with the solar sector in sub-Saharan Africa going forward.”
After the winning project(s) have been announced at the “Unlocking Solar Capital Africa” event, the developers would be invited to join Phanes Group for an intensive four-day workshop at its headquarters in Dubai, UAE to help lay the foundations for delivering a bankable and sustainable project.
GNA
Biakoye District Appeals for a DCE
Nana Ama Pokua Ampomah, Ninfahema of Worawora traditional area has appealed to President Nana Akuffo Addo to nominate a District Chief Executive (DCE) for the Biakoye District.
She said the District was lagging behind in socioeconomic development due to the absence of a DCE, following a series of rejections of nominees by members of the Assembly.
At a forum at Jasikan during a tour by Mr Francis Nyonyo Council of State Member for the Volta region, Nana Ampomah said the District had felt the ‘pinch’ and was ready to confirm government’s nominee to fast track development.
Madam Millicent Kabuki Caboo, President’s nominee as DCE was rejected thrice by the Assembly.
GNA
ABL Begins Alcohol and Pregnancy Programme for Women
Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) refer to a group of conditions, characterised by facial deformities, behavioural and learning problems that occur in persons whose parents, especially their mothers, consumed alcohol while pregnant or preparing for pregnancy.
Harrowing stories are all too often recounted of babies that are delivered with facial deformities such as cleft palate.
While this particular deformity can be and is sometimes surgically corrected, the scars, emotional and physical, still remain reminders of an imperfection caused by a mother’s, and sometimes father’s ignorance of the consequences of alcohol consumption before and during pregnancy.
However, most concerning, perhaps, are the other conditions that befall victims of FASDs; those conditions that are irreparable and confine these innocent ones to lives unliveable; lives marred by crippling behavioural and cognitive disorders.
Every year, a day is set aside to educate people on the dangers of consuming alcohol while pregnant or preparing for it. At the forefront of this drive to educate and save lives is Accra Brewery Limited (ABL), a company sincerely committed to ensuring every experience with alcohol is a positive one.
With a passion unbridled, and the ambitious goal of reaching as many women as possible, ABL has rolled up its metaphorical sleeves and gone to work to sensitize women on the dangers of alcohol consumption during pregnancy through its Alcohol and Pregnancy Programme.
Now in its fourth year, the Programme has impacted the lives of over 3000 women and if the overwhelmingly positive feedback is anything to go by, Ghana’s premier Brewery will not be relenting anytime soon till it has succeeded in creating a healthier world.
The Programme forms part of the company’s wider efforts at promoting smart drinking, and partners reproductive health Outpatient Departments (OPDs) in major health facilities across the country, starting with Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, 37 Military Hospital, Adabraka Polyclinic, Police Hospital, Kaneshie Polyclinic and Koforidua General Hospital. This month, ABL is once again partnering the Public Health Department (Antenatal) of the Police Hospital, Accra, to reach the vulnerable.
The initiative has emerged as a pragmatic approach to tackling FASDs head on, while simultaneously vividly illustrating ABL’s commitment to ensuring the welfare, not only of its consumers, but also to Ghanaians in general.
History
Every year on September 9th, International Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) Awareness Day is observed. Proclamations are issued in countries, states, provinces, and towns all around the world.
Bells are rung at 9:09 a.m. in every time zone from New Zealand to Alaska and people all around the world gather for events to raise awareness about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy, and the plight of individuals and families who struggle with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).
The first FASD Day was celebrated on 9/9/1999. This day was chosen so that on the ninth day of the ninth month of the year, the world will remember that during the nine months of pregnancy, a woman should abstain from alcohol. This notwithstanding anytime is a good time to raise awareness about Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).
Awareness
There is strong scientific evidence that heavy drinking during pregnancy can permanently damage the cells of the growing foetus and the baby’s nervous system. This possibly leads to the development of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, (FAS) with challenges ranging from learning difficulties and social integration problems to physical birth defects.
When a pregnant woman drinks, alcohol is carried through her bloodstream, through the placenta and into the foetus’s blood. This can affect the development of the foetus and cause Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), which refers to a broad range of birth defects including FAS.
FAS is a cluster of genetic and congenital anomalies found in some children born to women who are either dependent on or abuse alcohol. The anomalies include pre and post-natal growth deficiency, distinctive facial features and central nervous system dysfunction. The estimated prevalence of the incidence of FAS ranges from 0.5 to 3 per 1,000 births.
ABL’s Commitment
It is important to note, though, that not all women who are alcohol dependent or who abuse alcohol give birth to children with FAS. Other factors such as diet, older age, and smoking and illicit drug abuse have been associated with congenital abnormalities.
However as long as there is the slightest chance that drinking during pregnancy can cause FAS, ABL sees the need to make women aware of the danger. Besides, apart from FAS, drinking during pregnancy can cause other foetal conditions such as heart and kidney defects, hearing and sight impairment, and other brain and central nervous system dysfunctions.
Importantly, while ABL is understandably most concerned about ensuring that the alcoholic drinks it sells, chief amongst them being CLUB Beer, are not the cause of complications, or that they negatively impact babies during and after pregnancy, the company is looking much further afield to ensure that no pregnant woman suffers ill consequences from any type or source of alcohol consumption.
Under ABL’s Alcohol and Pregnancy programme, expectant mothers are taken through topics such as the effects of alcohol on the mother and the unborn child as well as its effects on the development of the foetus.
Experiences
Thirty-two year old Lily Danso, a self-employed mother of three and Programme beneficiary, expressed gratitude for the wealth of knowledge she had amassed on alcohol and pregnancy and admonished her colleague women to desist from the habit.
“There are a lot of women who are unaware of the effects alcohol consumption can have on the foetus,” Lily said.
She further recounted that “on the day of the programme, some women asked if it was ok to drink something before eating while pregnant”. Obviously, this is a wrong notion but “a lot are still unaware that what they ingest can affect the foetus. She encouraged the continuation of the Programme, saying, ‘there are many (women) who are still ignorant and need to be reached”.
Irene Hada, a house wife who attended ante-natal sessions at the Tema General Hospital for her second child, admitted that though she knew alcohol consumption was not advisable for a pregnant woman, she did not realise the enormity of the consequences of such until her participation in the Programme.
She confessed that while pregnant, she was tempted to drink alcohol due to cravings induced by the sale of alcohol where she resided. To resist the temptation, “I would just be inside and lock myself inside,” Irene revealed. She divulged that had it not been for her exposure to the consequences of alcohol consumption during pregnancy as a result of the Programme, ‘I would have taken (alcohol).
Aisha Iddrissu, who had her first child, Imman, at the age of twenty-nine, does not take alcohol for religious reasons. However, seeing a woman who drank heavily give birth to a physically-deformed baby profoundly affected her. She says what bothered her most was the frequent attribution of such deformities to curses, which diminishes the negligence of the alcoholic mother.
Aisha maintains she would recommend the Programme to other women “because it has helped me to understand that alcohol consumption while pregnant can lead to deformations in the baby; that their ears can come out like that or their noses and mouths will be unformed”.
Similarly, healthcare personnel are highly appreciative of ABL’s efforts, confirming that the Programme is serving to reduce alcohol dependency and abuse among pregnant women and, most importantly, ‘save lives’.
Christiana Afful-Akonnor, Senior Staff Midwife at the Tema General Hospital, confirms that alcohol consumption during pregnancy is a major challenge hampering efforts at meeting maternal and infant mortality goals. She advocated the continuous education of pregnant women, especially in the market place and churches, on the negative effects of alcohol consumption such as deformity, growth retardation and cognitive defects.
According to her, experiences gathered over the years in dealing with pregnant women indicate that quite a number entertain misconceptions that consuming alcohol enables them to eat well. This, she emphatically stated, is highly erroneous, adding that ABL’s efforts were serving to educate, erase these notions, and save lives.
ABL’s Alcohol and Pregnancy programme touches participants. Whether it confirms what they already know about alcohol and pregnancy, with the knowledge empowering them to be resolute in their convictions to avoid such self-destructive tendencies at all cost; or feeds them with new critical information, it shows these women the very palpable and disastrous effects alcohol consumption can have on their innocent, growing foetuses. And for that, they are thankful.
GNA
Cargill’s Now Pay Ghanaian Cocoa Farmers Through E-Money Platforms
Cargill is celebrating with more than 10,000 Ghanaian cocoa farmers as the company has made its first ever sustainable premium payment by electronic transfer through its Licensed Buying Company (LBC).
The payment of GHc2 million was announced at a ceremony Thursday, attended by Nana Kwadwo Twum II – Acting President, Sefwi Bekwai Traditional Area & Chief of Sefwi Humjibre, Dr Opoku – Executive Director, CHED and Clara Arthur – General Manager, Projects & Business Development, GhIPSS, where a symbolic cheque representing the payment was presented to participating farmers.
Cargill’s LBC, which began operating in November 2016, allows the company to directly source cocoa from certified farmers in Ghana – putting the farmer at the heart of its business.
The buying process is fully e-money enabled, allowing Cargill to pay farmers directly by electronic transfer for the first time.
The LBC is part of Cargill’s Cocoa Promise, the company’s commitment to improving the livelihoods of farmers and communities that will secure a thriving cocoa sector for generations to come.
Cargill already sources directly from farmers and farmer organisations in other origin countries.
Moving to this model in Ghana means that the company is now better positioned to implement sustainability activities under the Cargill Cocoa Promise on a wider scale, while also better serving its customers.
Mr Lionel Soulard, the Managing Director, Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate West Africa, said: “Our first electronic premium payment in Ghana since Cargill’s LBC was established is good news for farmers. Our new approach, combining new high-tech purchasing with the LBC model of direct sourcing and collaboration with farmers, is working well and we hope to make many more such payments in the future.”
Cargill’s innovative purchasing model uses the latest technology to implement the principles of sustainability and full traceability in Ghana.
Farmers deliver their cocoa to community warehouses where their beans are digitally weighed and assigned a fully traceable bar code. Funds are then transferred straight to the farmer’s phone or e-wallet using E-money through partnerships with E-Zwich, MTN mobile Money and Tigo Cash.
Details of the cocoa beans are recorded in a standardised management system before they are transferred to central warehouses.
Through this bar code system, Cargill can now, for the first time in Ghana, trace each individual bag of beans sourced through the Cargill LBC to the individual farmer, creating a fully traceable supply chain.
Mr Soulard explained, “Having long standing relations with cocoa farmers and their communities is critical for the full implementation of our sustainability approach and we are now expanding our sustainability activities to enable farming communities to benefit from training, community and farm development support.”
Working together with CARE International, Cargill is currently undertaking development projects in 108 communities in Ghana, focusing on women’s empowerment, child protection and food and nutrition security.
The strategy is to empower these communities through the formation of community development committees (CDCs), providing each with $500 seed capital to spearhead the development agenda of the communities.
Cargill would thus be investing $300,000 each year for the next three years to create resilient cocoa communities in the area where the LBC operates.
“We are excited about continuing our sustainability journey in Ghana, in partnership with COCOBOD, the Ghanaian cocoa board,” said Mr Soulard. “As our new purchasing model is fully sustainable and fully certified, it will strengthen farmer organisations and enable farmers to benefit from future premium payments for certified, sustainable cocoa beans.
“Developing our sourcing capabilities in the world’s second largest cocoa producing country is an essential step to meet growing customer demand for sustainable, certified cocoa.”
In the coming year, Cargill is also committed to working with the Ministry of Education to renovate, reconstruct and build schools in the four districts where it currently operates, to improve access to education.
GNA
2 Farmers on Remanded for Carrying Marijuana
Two farmers, caught with large quantity of dried leaves suspected to be marijuana have been remanded in prison by the Juaso Circuit Court.
The pleas of Osei Yaw and Yaw Abossi were not taken and they were ordered to make their next appearance on September 27.
Police Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Obuor told the court, presided over by Mr. Yusif Assibey, that the pair was arrested by police officers on routine patrol duty at Dwease in the Asante-Akim Central Municipality on September 01.
The dried leaves, packed in eight parcels and concealed in a sack, was being carried in a taxi from Dwease-Praaso.
It was uncovered when police officers patrolling that road corridor stopped and conducted a search on the vehicle.
The prosecution said the two claimed ownership of the dried leaves and they were arrested.
He requested that the court remanded the accused persons to enable the police to send sample of the leaves for forensic laboratory examination.
GNA
Gonjaland welcomes Fulani herdsmen with open arms
Mr. Godwin Evenyo Dzekoto,the project coordinator of Aroacha Ghana,a none governmental organisation has called for a collaboration between Fulani herdsmen,Chiefs and stakeholders in Gonjaland in a bid to adopting a holistic approach to address issues of over grazing in Gonjaland.
According to him,cattle grazing over the years has severe consequences on the land.A situation which has attracted several concerns from opinion leaders in Gonjaland, latest among them being the just ended performance review workshop on the implementation of the medium term development plan (2014 – 2017 ), where stakeholders expressed serious concerns about the continues destruction and increasing conflicts caused by grazing activities in Gonjaland.
He said this in a one day multi- stakeholders engagement with Fulani herdsmen, Chiefs, farmers, heads of department, nongovernmental organisations, community based organisations as well as faith based organisations in Gonjaland, with the aim of harnessing stakeholders input to develop a comprehensive blueprint to foster sustainable grazing modalities within Gonjaland in other to ameliorate its negative impacts on community livelihood and the environment.
Chief Nyankpani Kunkowura from the Wasipe gate (North Gonja ) said, the chiefs and community members are in a cordial relationship with the Fulani herdsmen and as a matter of fact,do contract them to take care of their cattle. “However,the attitude of some Fulani herdsman- raping our children and wives as well as the havoc caused by most of them are usually the things that causes confusion between us.Even we as chiefs, when a Fulani man comes to you and plead with you to allow him settle on your traditional area, as soon as you allow him, he would flood the whole place with several Fulani settlers without your notice” he added.
Mr Mohammed Alhassan,a Fulani herdsman on his part said most of them have settled in Gonjaland for a long time and have raised their families in Gonjaland, therefore the success and welfare of those communities are of a great concern to them.
He further admitted to the fact that some Fulani herdsmen do actually rape women in the bush and also fomenting troubles but the are believed to be the recent few new Fulani settlers.
Mr Godwin then called on all and Sundry to draw a road map of integrating all Fulani herdsmen into communities where they would be involved in decision making process as well as participate in developmental activities in the community instead of asking them to stay in isolation.
The Participants were taken through series of presentations on the effects of grazing and at the end of the program were able to come out with some opportunities that grazing offers, the threats that grazing posses with the landscape as well as the impact of the threats and what is needed to be done to address those threats and the negative impacts.
It was also agreed that all District Assembly’s should amend their by-laws since they were scribed in 2010.
A nine members committee comprising of chiefs , Assembly members, Fulani herdsmen, a farmer among others was formed to champion the cause of grazing and the other concerns raised in Gonjaland.
By Sumaila Hafiz Kamara
(PAD FM News)
The Movie ‘Cocoon’ Outlines Some General Notions About Old Age
My movie choice was Cocoon. In this spellbinding comedy-drama/sci-fi fantasy movie aliens from Antarea, an extraterrestrial planet, established an outlying settlement on Atlantis on planet earth some hundred centuries ago, which later sank. Those aliens who returned to Antarea after the catastrophic sinking (first upheaval), kept those of their colleagues who lost their life/vital force in pseudo-rock encasements, called cocoon—hence the name of the movie—on Atlantis.
Later some of these aliens, otherwise called Antareans, led by their leader Walter, returned to earth disguised as humans to retrieve their colleagues. They rented a residence with a pool, hired the captain of a boat, Jack, to help them retrieve their cocooned colleagues from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and then kept their devitalized cocooned colleagues in the said pool.
Walter consequently supplied the pool with vital/life force to keep their devitalized colleagues sufficiently energized for their long journey back to their extraterrestrial abode—Antarea.
With time the voyeur Jack fell in love with Kitty, a gorgeous Antarean, the former onetime spying on her undressing only to discover to his utmost surprise that, after all, she and her colleagues were inhuman. And then they revealed their little secret to him. Jack agreed to go along.
The movie, however, takes an interesting turn when three close friends—Arthur, Ben, and Joe—residents of a retirement home adjacent to the Antareans’ rented residence, sporadically encroached upon the premises of the rented residence and swam in the pool, thinking the quiet residence untenanted.
The three friends chanced upon the pool as “a fountain of youth,” eventually sharing the life/vital force with the cocooned aliens.
The pool miraculously sent Joe’s cancer into remission, while rejuvenating and energizing all three, in the process bringing great joy to their hearts.
With time the healing powers of the pool reached the retirement home, although Bernie consistently and poignantly refused to take his possible dementia-suffering wife, Rose, to the proverbial pool for healing, only rescinding his stilted personal convictions and beliefs only after his beloved wife had passed on. Bernie once said to Joe: “‘Old’ is right. I don’t want to be young again.”
The movie conveys some nuanced stereotypes about the elderly, though. That the elderly are physically weak and lonely, that the elderly cannot dance with the vigor and boisterousness of youthfulness, that they have absent or markedly diminished sexual prowess and therefore cannot approach, enjoy—or are somehow incapable of—philandering or romance/love the way young people supposedly see it, that people view the elderly as “old,” “frail,” vulgar—that the elderly, in short, are in some way incapable of having too much fun, of outdoor recreation, of mentation, of affection, of health, of love and affection, of self-protection, of personal/collective responsibilities, and of youthful exuberance, a world quite different from sanity and the familiar.
But the unbridled generosity of the peaceful aliens and the pool’s life/vital force changed all that! They proved that the elderly, contrary to popular perceptions, are also human—with natural and acquired endowments of rational intellect, lust for the opposite sex, self-esteem, affectional proclivities, instinctual cravings for survival, greed and jealousy, the will to live despite the odds of aging (longevity), accountability, etc.
Indeed, the movie raises difficult existential questions about life, mortality and immortality, health, longevity, illness—generally, as well as about some indispensable aspects of Maslow’s physiological needs. The cast exemplified these traits so well.
Finally, I encountered some myths/stereotypes about the elderly which includes, but not limited to, the fact that they are lazy and sedentary, sick with incurable disorders, poor, sleep all day, preoccupied with dying/death, depressed and lonely, uninterested in the opposite gender.
My chance encounter with a friend’s uncle challenged the myths. His uncle re-married a 30-year-old damsel at 70, worked full time, farmed/attended parties on weekends, played soccer/jogged, cooked his own healthy meals, read extensively, slept 6-8 hours a day, never developed any incurable disorder(s).
He was wealthy, healthy, and active well into his death at the age of 102.
Source: Francis Kwarteng
Buhari’s 32” TV and Garba Shehu’s Interpretations So Far
When you think you have seen it all and nothing from the presidency could surprise you any longer, then you are hit with even a more mundane celebration of oddities by Buhari and his team members.
Nothing is more ludicrous and banal than a senior special assistant to the president of Nigeria on media and publicity condescending so low as to brazenly revel and make a national issue of Buhari’s TV set at his private home in Daura because, according to him, it proves the president’s “simplicity, honesty, incorruptibility and personal integrity”.
In a nation where university lecturers are on a nationwide strike with other staff unions soon to join them leaving our young ones stranded and unsure of what the future holds for them and where resident doctors have also embarked on nationwide strike action leaving patients unattended to even as many suffer avoidable slow and painful death as a result; a nation that is so sunk in economic hardship, social dysfunction, political uncertainty and combustible disquiet in the presidency as epitomized by the support for another candidate other than Buhari in the coming 2019 general elections by the minister of women affairs, it is most unfortunate that what a high ranking presidency official decided to treat Nigerians to is a tragi-comedy of antiquities of some sort from Daura.
That essay by Shehu exemplifies the mindset of the presidency: two years after assuming power, the Buhari administration is still in campaign mood, promoting self over national affairs while still focusing on the opposition as the reason for their monumental failure.
While the crux of Garba Shehu’s essay was to celebrate Buhari’s 32” television, “the TV stand, the curtains, chairs and about every item visible to the eye in those pictures” which appeared in the social media showing the president watching the FIFA World Cup qualifying match between Cameroun and Nigeria, let us quickly remind him and his ilk that it was the same stunt that was pulled by his principal when a picture of him taking “an austere” beverage made from small sachets of Milo were deliberately displayed for photographs.
That picture made some easily excited Nigerians go agog in praise of the arrival of a “simple”, “honest” and “incorruptible” president as if that was enough to put food on their table. Two years down the line, a lot of those deceived by such PR stunts have lost their jobs, some have had to close down their factories, packed up their businesses, withdrew their children from school, sold their valuables in order to survive, while others have suffered the misfortune of being murdered and buried in mass graves by the same government they chanted “Sai Baba” for in the run up to the 2015 general elections. Worse still, a good number of these people have taken the easy way out of their APC-imposed sufferings by taking their lives! Unfortunately, we are on that path again! The path of democracy turned to “pictocracy” which is the government of pictures, by pictures and for pictures. Garba Shehu should be pitied if he cannot see the hypocrisy in a man who uses a 32” TV set, an old TV stand etc as a president but rushed to build a helipad in his home town of Daura.
As the simple and austere man that Shehu paints the president, one would have thought that Buhari should be flying in commercial airlines, board commercial vehicles at Jabi Motor Park whenever he is travelling to Daura from Abuja, patronize our General Hospitals instead of wasting a humongous part of our commonwealth on himself while on medical tourism in the UK, educate his children in Nigeria, his wife go about with locally made wristwatches, Aba-made bags and shoes etc. the fact is that the hood does not make the monk.
When a presidency indulges in the pedestrian narrative of its activities, it is because it lacks anything to showcase as a positive outcome of its feeble efforts towards improving the lives of the people.
It is the same bug of celebrating nothing as something in the presidency that also compelled Bashir Ahmad, the president’s personal assistant to tweet the president’s picture alighting from the presidential jet with his wife behind him on their way from Daura after the Sallah holidays and labeled it “Class”.
Many twitter users questioned the rationale behind such showing asking if alighting from a plane bestows on one any particular class or other status. One highly respectable user, @akaebube, aptly captured it when he tweeted in response to @BashirAhmaad thus: “Tough working for a government with no visible achievements. You just have to make do with showcasing ‘coming down from a plane’ as achievement”!
Another user, @Queen_Kas, responded to Ahmad rather sarcastically thus: “I guess as opposed to coming down with her (Aisha Buhari) head”.
In a society as troubled as ours, government officials should actually have been very busy organizing press conferences, granting press interviews, making press releases, meeting critical stakeholders and the sections of Nigerians wherever and whenever possible explaining, clarifying, defending and promoting government plans, policies and actions being taken to move Nigeria forward.
Essays from such officials should border around matters of national importance, and there are many of them to write.
Instead of wasting precious time and efforts dwelling on a TV model of the president, Shehu should have utilized such time and resources to write essays on why ASUU, resident doctors and those planning to go on strike soon should have a rethink and cooperate with government. He has rather exposed Buhari as a man left behind by time because TV sets of these days are now packed with a lot of functions that can even make one use them for other very useful purposes apart from just watching programmes. But because our president is limited in capacity, it is given that his gadgets must also be of the type limited in functions.
Lastly, when we have a government bereft of ideas and scarce of achievements, even otherwise fairly intelligent people like Garba Shehu and Femi Adeshina would be forced to resort to crass tactics to justify their pay. Celebrating Buhari making notes on a mud slate rather than on an electronic device might just be the next picture to be celebrated by Garba Shehu in another episode of the “pictocrats”. Till then, let the president eat with rubber spoons and his guests with rubber fork so that our economy will improve! Hypocrisy!
By Jude Ndukwe
—[email protected]; Twitter: Stjudendukwe
Hospitality Employees Asked to Build People and not Businesses
‘’You don’t build a business – you build people ;and then people build your business’’ – Zig Ziglar
Without good businesses, the world would be a static place. Everything that happens around us is as a result of one good business or the other. It is very important that every successful business starts well. Many visionaries who establish businesses are tempted into believing that they have to first build a good business and then they employ people to work for them. In reality, this is what is happens in most cases but ideally this shouldn’t be the case. Building people first and then working together with the people to build the business seems to be the way to go. Building people only means that you empower your employees, give them the best support and then happily they will help build a successful business. A closer look at the hospitality industry in Ghana shows that many of the successful stakeholders have a well structured and supported workforce. In order to greatly develop the high potentials of our hospitality industry,it is expedient that businesses pay attention to the needs and welfare of their employees. Below, Jumia Travel, Africa’s leading online travel website looks at the roles of employees in hospitality development.
Commitment – The Ghanaian hospitality has become such that you cannot survive doing ordinary things. On the other hand, doing extraordinary things also demands a high level of commitment. This should come from all employees. If an employee is committed to his work and goes all out to perform his/her duties, then we are on our way to achieving our goals. Receptionists, chefs, managers, cleaners, tour guides, car rentals and all other employees in the hospitality industry need to feel not only part of a team making things happen but actually responsible for making them happen. Going to all lengths to ensure that guests and customers are satisfied is one of the fundamental roles of any employee in this industry.
- Innovation – Innovation they say is the mother of invention. Why do the same things all the time to achieve the ordinary while you can do different things at different times to achieve the extraordinary? The secret lies in being ahead of your competition or doing something differently. How can we do this? By being innovative in our respective lines of duty as employees. Come up with a plan, a system or an activity that works. Something that isn’t in the books but achieves amazing results. Quite recently, when you enter certain top class hotels for your birthday, you may be expecting a cool solemn time with a few friends. After dinner, you are ready to cut your cake and then you hear a group of waiters chanting and singing some ‘’jama’’ songs as they bring your cake amidst some sparkling candles. The atmosphere becomes charged and you become the centre of attraction. The way they even sing and dance to the happy birthday song will leave you with unforgettable memories. When you build good employees, they are happy to go to such lengths and think out of the box to make your customers happy.
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Customer Service – One of the best selling points of any business. Get it right and you are halfway into being a standout business ; Get it wrong and your entire business may just come crumbling down. Have you ever been treated badly by a rude staff at your hotel? Have you ever been left unattended to at the bus terminal or airport? Have you ever waited for hours for your bill at the restaurant only for the waiter to return with questions? If you have gone through any of these, then you know the importance of good customer service. Employees are the frontrunners of any business because they relate more with the customers therefore they have an obligation to treat these customers to amazing experiences worth coming back for. Whether or not a guest returns to a hotel may largely depend on the relationships built with the employees there. A friendly staff will always create the platform for a comfortable stay. Just in case you doubt this, just try putting your most unfriendly staff member at your front desk or reception and measure the returns versus when you have your most friendly employee there.
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Professionalism – Over the years, many stakeholders in the hospitality industry have stressed on the need for professionalism. In countries where tourism and hospitality are seen to be developed, professionalism has been key. With many of those patronizing these services coming from diverse foreign markets and backgrounds, it is very important that employees here execute their duties with a high level of professionalism. You can excuse the 4-5 star hotels for this because you are almost always certain of a high sense of professionalism. Even though there are a few exceptions, they are generally up to the mark. However, with the lower star rated hotels and guesthouses, professionalism on the part of employees seems to be either very low or entirely non-existent. Employers also are not strict on this and allow a lot of things to go for granted. Professionalism engulfs many different facets which may include dressing, communication and service delivery. An employee is obligated to dress well, communicate in a friendly yet efficient and professional way as well as deliver top quality service.To stay in competition with the top hotels around the continent, this is really vital.
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Consistency -. After all is said and done, there is only one way to be relevant and be profitable. It’s simple, STAY IN BUSINESS!!!. Of course, you can do all of this for a while and stop. You may even do it for a longer period but the quality may reduce every now and then. The catch here is to be consistent. Do the same good things always whether we have someone watching or not. As employees, we grow when the business grows and in order to get that salary raise or bonus coming regularly, we have to ensure that we keep the profits coming regularly too. How can we do that? By consistently working hard, being professional, delivery a better customer experience and staying committed to the cause. This also develops the employee personally and as continuous practice makes perfect, you may end up enhancing several skills.
When the employee is working extremely hard at all of this, it remains the sole responsibility of the employer as well to ensure better conditions of service, incentives, regular trainings and non-stop motivation for the employee. As employers in the hospitality business, if you are looking at growing and developing this industry, then you have a primary obligation of building your employees, they will eventually build a great business for you.
Credit : Bennet Otoo, Jumia Travel
Bangkok Environmental Summit Hits on Natural Resources & Pollution
The first Asia-Pacific Ministerial Summit on the Environment opened in Bangkok this week with a call for governments in the region to forge a transformative alliance that will drive forward an innovative, productive, resource efficient low carbon and pollution free economy as a means to deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
High-level officials from over 35 countries are gathered at the four-day Summit held jointly by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and UN Environment to assess the state of environmental sustainability in the region, identify regional perspectives and priorities, and agree on concerted actions to promote a resource efficient and pollution-free region, sound environmental management and sustainable use of natural resources.
At the opening of the ministerial segment today, United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Dr. Shamshad Akhtar highlighted that Asia and the Pacific continues to exhibit high resource intensity and underlined the importance of the Summit theme ‘Towards a resource efficient and pollution free Asia-Pacific region,’ which acknowledges that earth’s natural resources, including clean air, oceans and freshwater, are fundamental for human survival, prosperity, and well-being.
“A stronger focus on resource efficiency will allow humanity to continue to expand the use of services while reducing the actual quantity of resources used. Only by decoupling economic activity and human well-being from resource use, waste and pollution, can the Sustainable Development Goals be reached for all,” said Dr. Akhtar.
“Building on the regional and global momentum to act, countries must now urgently translate the global agreements on paper to action on the ground. The regional road map for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific which our member States adopted earlier this year provides a guiding framework for facilitating regional cooperation including inter alia on sustainable management of natural resources.”
Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment highlighted that Asia-Pacific has undergone enormous positive change in recent decades, something that has lifted countless people out of poverty but that this growth has come at a cost, namely increased pollution and the depletion of natural resources.
“Millions are dying because of environmental degradation, and from heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases and lung cancer caused by indoor and outdoor pollution, which has become the biggest health scourge of the 21st century. The outstanding natural beauty of the region is also under threat from the tide of plastic waste dumped into our oceans, and this waste is finding its way into the food chain,” said Mr. Solheim.
“But the leadership and resolve to tackle these issues is getting stronger. Development and environmental protection are no longer seen as part of an either-or equation. Many parts of the region are now showing the world how to shift to a low carbon, sustainable and inclusive economy. Pollution can be controlled and avoided, and we know that positive action now will allow us to reap huge rewards in the future.”
Whilst Asia and the Pacific has made major progress in terms of economic growth and poverty reduction, the same regional megatrends that are transforming societies and economies, such as urbanization, economic and trade integration, rising incomes and changing consumption patterns are multiplying environmental challenges in the region.
Regional CO2 emissions have doubled between 1990 and 2012, from 8,027 million tonnes to 16,849 million tonnes, and the use of resources in Asia-Pacific, such as minerals, metals and biomass, has tripled since 1990. Air, ocean and fresh water pollution is on the rise. Unhealthy environments are causing significant health problems including more than 7 million deaths annually, mostly attributable to outdoor and indoor air pollution.
Regional priority areas of action identified at the Summit will feed into a Ministerial Declaration and the third meeting of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi later this year.
71-Year- Old Naomi Judd Prides Herself The Healthiest Woman
In an exclusive interview with Closer Weekly, country legend Naomi Judd opens up about overcoming her incredible battles and how she is celebrating life now at 71 years old.
“It’s a miracle that I’m still here! I don’t know how I’ve made it this far,” Naomi admits to Closer. “But here I am, fully oriented to life, and an overachiever!”
She is well-known for conquering the country music world with her daughter Wynonna but she’s also survived abuse, severe depression, a trip to the psych ward and a 1990 hepatitis C diagnosis, during which doctors gave her three years to live.
Naomi says the support of her family — daughters Wynonna, 53, and actress Ashley Judd, 49, and her husband of 28 years, singer-manager Larry Strickland, 71 — certainly helped.
Naomi reveals when she was first diagnosed with severe treatment-resistant depression and extreme panic disorder, that nothing worked. “Finally, with months-long therapy sessions, I figured out all the stuff I’d stuffed down my whole life,” she explains.
“The first memory I had was being molested by my uncle. I was beaten and raped by an ex-con on heroin when I was 22. My great-grandfather was a mass murderer, and after his son became my grandfather, my grandmother murdered him,” Naomi confides to Closer.
“Some brilliant experts on mental disorders helped me recover and realize how much control I have in my current life,” she says.
“And after dealing with this, I’m now the healthiest that I’ve ever been!” Naomi tells Closer.
Source:closerweekly.com
Bethenny Frankel’s Bitter Grudge With Stepfather Gets Out of Hands
The bitter feud that has haunted Real Housewives of New York City’s Bethenny Frankel and stepfather John Parisella on and off for decades has exploded again, In Touch magazine is reporting.
In a series of texts, exclusively obtained by In Touch, the two went from exchanging pleasantries to tearing each other apart in just a matter of days.
It all started in July, John reached out to Bethenny to tell her his daughter, Gabby, was engaged. Bethenny later wrote back with a nostalgia-tinged message, explaining she’d thought of John after visiting a Nathan’s hot dog stand in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, a place he used to take her as a child.
John continued to text her — and everything exploded in August. “In my prior texts, I asked Bethenny if she wants to go to Gabby’s wedding and said, ‘Let me know if you don’t so this way she (Gabby) won’t be embarrassed by sending you an invitation,’ ” John tells In Touch.
John exerted pressure about the wedding and seemed to try to guilt her into a reply. “Enough. You are beyond negative and I will not tolerate it. I do not know Gabby. I barely know you now,” she finally wrote back in the texts. “Stop this. I have had enough abuse.”
“You physically attacked me. Verbally abused me. Beat my mother senseless. Did drugs. Gambled,” she continued before warning him, “Stop your bulls—. I have had it.” Bethenny has previously accused her stepfather, who married her mother Bernadette, when Bethenny was 5, of attacking her when she was 19 and beating her mother with a telephone as she watched.
John tells In Touch, “There were a few occasions, over the space of a year or two, when I slapped or pushed Bernadette. But I never punched Bernadette. This happened when I was taking cocaine and Bethenny was young. I regret it terribly. I also want to make it clear that I have never laid a finger on Bethenny in my entire life. That is what is so hurtful in Bethenny’s accusations.”
Bethenny has made it clear to John he’s no longer welcome in her life. “Leave me alone,” she wrote to him. “Now and forever.”
Source: intouchweekly.com
Jenelle Evans hopeful for a wedding with David Eason
Teen Mom’s Jenelle Evans reveals in an exclusive interview with Life & Style that her eldest son Jace, 8, is set to walk her down the aisle on Sept. 23 when she ties the knot with pipe welder David Eason.
“He is so excited,” Jenelle tells Life & Style. “He wants to wear his suit tomorrow!”
Jenelle reveals that her September nuptials — her second wedding after a courthouse ceremony with ex Courtland Rogers in 2012 and five engagements — will be a casual affair.
“I even told guys, ‘Come in jeans and button-downs.’ I don’t care,” she tells Life & Style. “It’s going to be laid-back, with buffet-style food and only close friends and family.”
That means Jenelle’s other children (son Kaiser, 3, with ex Nathan Griffith and Ensley, her 7-month-old daughter with David) will definitely be on hand. But Jenelle’s mom, Barbara, won’t be babysitting her gaggle of grandkids while Jenelle’s at the altar.
“She really crushed our relationship,” says the MTV star, adding that her mother is not on the guest list. “Maybe I’ll forgive her someday, but just not right now.”
Source: lifeandstylemag.com
Brad Pitt Takes Drastic Measures to Finalize Divorce From Angelina Jolie
In an exclusive cover story last September, In Touch magazine revealed the details inside Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s $400 million divorce. Now almost exactly one year later, In Touch magazine is exclusively reporting that Brad plans to take drastic measures to finally end the marriage.
Brad — who shares kids Maddox, 16, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 11, and 9-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, with his ex, 42 — “is planning on asking his lawyer to speed up the divorce,” an insider tells In Touch.
Brad, 53, will seek a bifurcation, a legal maneuver that, if granted by a judge, would make him and Angelina single before their custody and asset arrangements are officially settled. “Restoring his status to a single person isn’t about Brad going out on the town and dating, but about his beginning a new chapter.”
“There has been little progress in getting close to a settlement,” the insider tells In Touch. “Brad has had enough. He’s ready to officially take back control of his life.”
“His life has been at a standstill while he’s spent a year appeasing Angelina,” a source tells In Touch. “He wants to move on to the next phase of his life without having his hands tied by her — and he wants it soon.”
Source: intouchweekly.com
Gambia Promises to Break The Hearts of Ghanaians – Modou Jobe
Modou Jobe, captain of the national team of Gambia, says his side is prepared to upset Ghanaians in the opening game of the West African Football Union (WAFU) tournament scheduled for September 9, at the Cape Coast Sports Stadium.
Speaking to the press at the Essipong Sports Stadium, Jobe 29, said they would neither be intimidated by their status as underdogs nor as visitors on Saturday.
He said although it would be difficult, they are prepared to humiliate the Black Stars in front of their own fans.
“Gambia would upset Ghana and progress to the second phase of the competition. Obviously we are the underdogs, but we are not intimidated by that.
“It’s going to be difficult especially in an opening game, but we are ready to progress to the next phase of the competition. We are very confident and determined to make our country proud on Saturday.” Jobe said.
He expressed gratitude to Ghanaians and the local organizing committee (LOC) for their warm reception since they arrived in the country.
“Honestly the hospitality has been good so far, the people are very friendly and we really appreciate the effort of the local organizing committee.
“We feel very comfortable because we’ve prepared well for this tournament. We are very positive going into this game, although we are playing against the host nation”. He added.
Source: GNA/NewsGhana.com.gh
Accra Hearts of Oak Shuns Aduana Stars Complaints
Accra Hearts of Oak has played down on a protest lodged against them by Aduana Stars over the use of an unqualified player in the 26th week league at the Accra Sports Stadium.
The Dormaa based side, has protested against Hearts of Oak for using Leonard Tawiah against them on match day 26 of the Ghana Premier League.
Mr. Kwame Opare Addo, the communication manager of Hearts in an interview with GNA sports on Thursday, said the protest raised by Aduana Stars was invalid.
He confirmed that, the club was aware of the protest and would soon respond appropriately.
He added that, Accra Hearts of oak would officially respond to the allegation within three days as directed by the disciplinary committee.
“We received the protest yesterday and we have three working days to respond to it and we would respond to it as soon as possible either, but we know we are not guilty”, he stated.
Source: GNA/NewsGhana.com.gh
iCoupon Strategize to Competitively Rival Foreign Brands
For the first time, two indigenous Ghanaian companies are collaborating to rival major foreign products in the food & beverage market.
The two will be selling at highly discounted prices when purchased together.
This arrangement is exclusive on the newly launched discount coupon and sales platform iCoupon which is currently live for brands to advertise on in Ghana.
Through iCoupon, consumers get the opportunity to enjoy promotional discounts off their purchases of a combination of Dough Man Doughnut and Yomi Yoghurt, the snack combo called ‘The Ultimate Snack’.
When a customer buys 5 doughnuts through the iCoupon platform, they get 1 Yomi Yoghurt all for the promo price of GHS15 instead of GHS17.
“Such collaborations are only seen among foreign brands in the high street fast food market and it’s about time we also bring value savings to our consumers” said Francis Kofigah, the founder and CEO of Dough Man Foods.
On iCoupon, Ghanaians enjoy constant and unlimited discounts off all purchases on the platform for a variety of products and services including electronics, home appliances, gadgets, restaurants, hospitality and others.
iCoupon is collaborating with various retailers, vendors and service providers to offer discounts to customers who purchase via the platform to offer everything cheaper than the average recommended retail price.
In an interview with Tony Donkor, the Sales & Marketing Director for Techno Genesis, the developers of iCoupon he said “as every consumer loves a bargain and to shop at discount prices, we developed iCoupon to be the single point of all discounts and be true to our slogan of being the Home of Discount Shopping”
About Techno Genesis – Techno Genesis is an indigenous African multi-national Internet marketing company that also develops web & mobile apps for monetization whiles also offering sales, marketing and business development services.
Source – techno-genesis.com
CAR: UN Unable to Effectively Safeguard Civilians in Basse-Kotto
A wave of brutal attacks in the Central African Republic, including the systematic rape and murder of civilians, highlights the urgent need for stronger UN action to protect civilians, Amnesty International said today.
On-the-ground research by the organization in August 2017 also uncovered a horrifying surge in torture, pillage, and forced displacement by a Seleka off-shoot, the Union for Peace in Central Africa (UPC).
“Communities living in Basse-Kotto have been left at the mercy of the UPC. Women have been raped, men murdered, villages destroyed, and the region’s UN peacekeeping force has proved ineffective in stemming these abuses,” said Joanne Mariner, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International.
“Civilians are not accidental victims in this conflict; they are direct targets. If the UN’s mandate in the Central African Republic is to mean anything, civilians must be better protected.”
In its two-week visit to the country, Amnesty International interviewed 30 people who had fled violent attacks on civilians in Basse-Kotto prefecture over the past several months, including a massacre in the town of Alindao on 8 May in which at least 130 people are believed to have been killed.
They gave the names and identifying information of 47 people killed by the UPC in these attacks. The exact number of people who have been killed is not known, but credible sources estimate that the number of victims has reached several hundred.
Sectarian attacks on civilians
As in late 2013 and early 2014, when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were violently expelled from the west of the country, the sectarian nature of the non-international armed conflict is increasingly evident.
The largely Muslim UPC has targeted Christian townspeople and villagers, perceived as supporting armed groups that oppose their rule, while the primarily Christian anti-balaka and armed “self-defence” groups have relentlessly targeted Muslim civilians.
A religious figure from Alindao, one of the worst-affected towns in the region, told Amnesty International: “The problem is now the Muslim population versus the Christian population …. We don’t want a religious conflict; we absolutely refuse it, but there’s very clearly an inter-communal conflict.”
The ongoing abuses are horrific. Annie, age 36, described how UPC fighters captured her and her husband in Alindao on 10 May. When her husband tried to run away, they shot him in the legs.
“‘We’re going to do something to you Christians that won’t be forgotten for many generations,’” she said the men told them, before one fighter raped her and another fighter raped her husband.
“After raping my husband, he shot him in the head,” Annie told Amnesty International. The rapes and the killing were carried out in front of her five children.
Twenty of the 25 women that Amnesty International interviewed from the region had been raped and nearly all had seen their adult male relatives killed.
One widow, age 28, sobbed as she described how she lost her husband, her father and her five-year-old son.
Her husband was killed in Alindao on 8 May, and the following day the rest of the family was caught by the UPC as they hid in a hut in the bush. She said the UPC fighters killed her father, gang-raped her and her 62-year-old mother, and bashed her son’s head against the floor of the hut, killing him.
“After three of them raped me I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was attached to a tree,” she told Amnesty International. “My mother untied me and we fled. I was hysterical.”
“The UPC’s use of rape as a weapon of war, and as a means of violently humiliating and degrading its victims, appears to be systematic,” said Balkissa Ide Siddo, Amnesty International’s Central Africa Researcher.
“However, it is the increasingly sectarian nature of these attacks that is perhaps the most worrying aspect of the current crisis.”
The Central African Human Rights Observatory (Observatoire Centrafricain des Droits de l’Homme, OCDH) has registered more than 100 victims of sexual violence who have fled the region for the capital Bangui in the last few months, a number that is no doubt a fraction of the total. Many, if not most, of the victims were gang-raped.
UN peacekeepers unable to protect civilians
The UN peacekeeping force, the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), has failed to prevent these abuses. Consisting of 12,870 uniformed personnel in the country, including 10,750 military personnel, the force is stretched thin in many areas.
Witnesses said that MINUSCA troops did not reach the town of Alindao until at least a day after the violence erupted, and even then, their numbers were insufficient to put a stop to the abuses. Rather than pro-actively carry out regular patrols, the troops focused on protecting the hospital and the displaced persons site run by the Catholic Church.
“We’re afraid that if there’s an attack [on a site for displaced people in Alindao] the MINUSCA will retreat into their base, and there will be a massacre,” said one local leader.
Amnesty International is calling for a review of MINUSCA’s capacity to carry out its mandate, covering factors such as training, equipment, coordination and the number of uniformed and civilian personnel.
“Although MINUSCA troops have saved many lives in the Central African Republic, their failures risk destroying public confidence in the peacekeeping mission and are putting thousands of people in danger,” said Joanne Mariner.
“Many Central Africans are now expressing increasing cynicism about MINUSCA’s willingness and ability to restore order, and about the mission’s capacity to conform to even a limited civilian protection mandate.”
Crimes under international law committed against civilians in the Central African Republic fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the recently established hybrid Special Criminal Court (SCC), and the national justice system. However, all three institutions have weaknesses.
The ICC’s ongoing investigation, which began in September 2014, will most likely only target only a handful of suspects. The SCC is not yet functioning, though it now has a prosecutor and some funding. Meanwhile, the already fragile national justice system has been weakened by the conflict and needs to be rebuilt almost entirely.
“There is little hope of ending the cycle of violence in the Central African Republic without an effective system of accountability to bring those responsible for these horrendous crimes to justice,” said Balkissa Ide Siddo.
“The Special Criminal Court must be funded so that it becomes operational as soon as possible.”
More than a million displaced by conflict
More than 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict since April. At least 600,000 people are now displaced within the country and another 438,700 are refugees in neighbouring countries (primarily Cameroon, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)).
Tens of thousands have fled the towns most affected by the fighting, including Alindao, Mingala, Nzangba, and Mobaye (at the border with DRC), as well as countless smaller villages in the region, heading for Bambari, Bangui, and DRC. Other displaced people are surviving in horrendous conditions in the bush, including on small islands in the Ubangi River, on the border of the DRC.
Some towns and villages in the Basse-Kotto region are said to be nearly empty, with what little is left of the civilian population taking refuge in church compounds that have become ad hoc displaced persons sites.
The OCDH reports that violence in the region is continuing, with the most recently documented clashes taking place in the town of Kongbo on 23 August, and that displaced people continue to flood into Bangui.
Basse-Kotto prefecture is one of several regions that exploded into conflict in 2017, as the country’s security situation worsened. At present, the country’s democratically elected government wields little or no power outside the capital, and much of the countryside is under the de facto control of a diverse array of armed groups.
Background to the conflict in Basse-Kotto
When Michel Djotodia stepped down as president of the Central African Republic in January 2014, armed fighters belonging to the Seleka coalition withdrew from the western third of the country, but consolidated their control over the country’s central and eastern regions. The coalition split into various factions, each asserting de facto authority over different parts of the country.
The UPC, led by Gen. Ali Darassa Mahamat, controlled the city of Bambari and a large portion of Ouaka prefecture for more than two years. Made up largely of ethnic Peulhs (Darassa is a Peulh), the UPC carried out a series of vicious attacks against civilians whom it believed supported the largely Christian anti-balaka fighters arrayed against it.
In February 2017, as part of an effort to demilitarize Bambari, MINUSCA convinced Darassa to leave the town. He moved his headquarters to Alindao, in Basse-Kotto, and immediately began cracking down on the civilian population.
The first changes that civilians perceived were an increase in coerced payments –for example, fees charged for crossing UPC checkpoints – and outright extortion. Relatively well-off local people, such as cattle owners, were particularly targeted.
Amnesty International interviewed a man from a small village near Nzangba who was held prisoner and tortured by the UPC in March, as a means to force him to hand over his herd. He told the organization that UPC fighters came to his house and demanded he hand over his 26 cattle and all his goods on the orders of Ali Darassa.
He was held for six days during which time he saw four of his fellow prisoners killed.
The human cost
The UPC carried out a string of violent attacks in May: in Alindao on 8 May, Nzangba on 17 May, and Mobaye on 25 May.
The bloodbath in Alindao was precipitated by an early morning attack by anti-balaka forces in a neighbourhood called Paris-Congo, in the town’s southeast. After routing the anti-balaka, the UPC unleashed its full force on the town’s Christian population.
Judith, 29, from the Paris-Congo neighbourhood, became separated from her husband when she fled with her children after shooting broke out near their home. After she ran into UPC fighters in the bush, the men in her group were shot and the women were raped.
“They told us to lie on the ground …. We were a group of women …. I didn’t lie down quickly so a fighter threw me on the ground and tore my underpants, to have sex with me in front of everyone … After the rape, he kicked me twice …. Other fighters were raping other women. My four children were there and they were crying.”
Marie, 33, was captured along with her husband in the fields outside Alindao on 10 May. She described how UPC fighters shot dead her husband for refusing to hand over his cattle, then gang-raped her in front of her children.
Florida, age 27, fled to the bush with her family on 8 May, but returned two weeks later because of the poor conditions in the bush. The night of the family’s return, UPC fighters came to their house and broke down the door.
“They tied [my husband] to a tree in front of the house. They put a black blindfold on me and undressed me …. They said that my husband would get to see how his wife would be treated. Two of them raped me in front of him. The children cried. After that, they shot my husband in the throat.”
Guilaine, 30, lived with her 60-year-old father and two children in the centre of Alindao. Three UPC fighters entered their neighbourhood and tied her father to a tree. When she began crying, upon seeing her father helpless, the fighters told her they would show her what they were capable of doing, and they cut her father’s throat.
“The three soldiers raped me in front of the children, then they hit me in the back with a rifle butt. I fled with my children, but I could hardly walk.”
It is not known precisely how many people were killed during the attack at Alindao, but the Central African Red Cross reported that it had picked up more than 130 bodies as of 14 May, after six days of violence. Besides killings and rapes, the UPC also carried out large-scale pillage of civilian homes.
Now Alindao is like a ghost town, its streets empty of life. While some Muslims remain in their homes, and run a small market, the Christian community has largely fled. Some 20,000 Christians have taken refuge at ad hoc displaced persons sites at the Catholic Church and other churches.
Therèse, 43, watched her husband and son being killed when the UPC attacked the town of Nzangba on 17 May.
“Three Seleka entered our compound … They were wearing military uniforms. They made gestures to tell my husband to lie on the ground. He refused. Immediately, a Peulh shot him. He fell. My eldest son then fell crying on my husband’s body. Another [fighter] shot him. He also died … The three of them (then) raped me … in front of my children.”
Princia, 20, who lived with her parents, fled for the bush when UPC fighters arrived, then returned home when the family believe the armed men had left.
“They came and broke down the door. They killed my father and raped my sisters and me. They tied us up with cords. I fainted during the rape. When they left, we fled into the bush.”
Tanzanian Politician Tundu Lissu Sustained Injured By Unknown Attackers
Responding to news that outspoken government critic Tanzanian parliamentarian Tundu Lissu has been shot and wounded by unidentified attackers in the capital Dodoma, Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, said:
“This cowardly attack on one of Tanzania’s most fearless and prominent politicians raises concerns about the safety of all dissident voices in the country, at a time when space for dissent is quickly shrinking.
“This heinous crime must not be swept under the carpet. The Tanzanian authorities must immediately launch an effective and impartial investigation into the shooting and ensure that those responsible are held to account.
“The authorities must take steps to reassure Tanzanians and the world that this shooting was not politically motivated.”
Background
Tundu Lissu, who also heads up the lawyer’s association, the Tanganyika Law Society, is a fierce and outspoken critic of President John Pombe Magufuli.
He was arrested in July for calling the president a dictator, and again in August for saying the Canadian government had detained a jet bought by the Tanzanian government over an unpaid $38m debt to a Canadian company. In total, he has been arrested six times this year.
Is Ex-President Mahama Still an ECOWAS Citizen?
Dear Brothers and Sisters of ECOWAS, I am not writing this piece to tarnish or attack the image of any person, as I am fully aware of the huge resources an individual commit to the effort in building his or her reputation. In fact, I rather I help in enriching the achieviments of individuals like my own former president, John Dramani Mahama. Please, forgive me, if I err. That is the least of my intention.
I am writing to draw our collective attention to the challenges making the effort of self determination of the people of West Africa very difficult, if not impossible. I am drawing your attention to the recent role his excellency, John Dramani Mahama played in Kenya that had people heaping blames on him. It is very sad to say, it was actually not about John Dramani Mahama but about the Commonwealth.
The fate Mr. Mahama suffered is just a typical British way of doing things. The British system is design to take credit when it goes right, and heap up blames on the messenger, when things go wrong. So in the United Kingdom, the British monarch take credit for anything good while and the Prime Minister is responsible for anything going wrong. Since her Merjesty the Queen of Britian is the head of the British Commonwealth, the same principle apply. This is best means of explaining the experience of former President John Mahama when the Kenyan Supreme Court declared the last election “unfair and not free”, so “null void”.
It is important to note that John Mahama did not do anything out of the ordinary. All he did, as instructed by the British Commonwealth Office, is to confirm the position of the Kenyan Electoral Commission (Independent Electroal and Bounries Commission -IEBC). For all some of us knew; Warshington, London and Brussels, arrived at a consensus which instructed their respective observers to side with IEBC. So as the leader of the British Commonwealth election observers delegation, all former President Mahama could do was to speak for the British Commonwealth, after receiving a feedback from the Commonwealth Office in London.
My question is, how helpful is any Ghanaian or West African with divided loyalties, to the course of the ECOWAS? Could this be explaining the reason for why the ECOWAS institution is in such an abnormal state? Both the British Commonwealth and the West African ECOWAS, are regional economic bodies aggressively competiting for, at least the wealth West Africa. If highly placed West African personalities like John Dramani Mahama, who are in the driving seat of ECOWAS by the virtue of their status as former heads of West African States, are also found to be working with the British, the French and the Portuguese Commonwealths to compet against ECOWAS, what fate is the ordinary ECOWAS citizen left with? Are we not having the same football player playing for two competing team at the same time? Is this not like a woman marring to men at the same time and having babies for both? How helpful then is it for any proud citizen of ECOWAS to engage in working for the British Commonwealth or the French Commonwealth or even the Portuguese Commonwealth?
Like the man from Togo is a member of the French Commonwealth by the virtue of his colonial heritage, the Ghanaian is a citizen of the British Commonwealth by the virtue of his colonial heritage. So whether we are talking about the British, the French or the Portuguese Commonwealths, the West African is in any of these group by the virtue of his colonial past. Thus, having any Ghanaian assuming any role in the British Commonwealth, is a challenge we have to address one day. We cannot pretend not to be aware of the obvious conflict in the Ghanaian membership of the Imperial British Commonwealth and the expected commitments of the same Ghanaian in his new ECOWAS challenges.
We cannot deny the fact of our present reality of having every Ghanaian experiencing membership of the British Commonwealth by our mere colonial past, while in search for a new future, the same Ghanaian has forged out a citizen of the ECOWAS for generations to come. The average Ghanaian’s loyalty is thus thorn between his British Commonwealth colonial past and the future Commonwealth of ECOWAS. The question is, should the Ghanaian forever subscribe to his fate of the past of unequals or give his future of equals in ECOWAS, more attention?
Therefore, his excellency John Dramani Mahama is not just a Ghanaian but a citizen of ECOWAS, as Ghana is a member state of ECOWAS. It is sad to add that former president Mahama is just as guilty as anyone of us, and still suffer a sense of inferiority associated with our past experience, enough to accept the role of leading the British Commonwealth mission. No American or European will stoop so low in such an association of unequals, to take a dirty job of an errand boy, for a former colonizer. In fact, Mahama is not just a citizen of ECOWAS, but a former chairman of the ECOWAS authority and a former member of the ECOWAS Assembly, which is presently the highest decision making body of the authority.
It is also fair to add that Ghana is not just a member of ECOWAS but a founding member of the 15 regional body. Unlike the relationship of the unequals associated with the British Commonwealth, Ghana’s role in ECOWAS is that of equals while Ghana is the second largest member economy of ECOWAS and our representation of eight (8) members of parliament to the regional block, show how important is the role of Ghana in ECOWAS. So Ghana is a key actor in the development of the future of the West African, meaning the Ghanaian must be proud of the leadership responsibility place on him by the 377 million population of West Africa. How then must a people with such important role in ECOWAS be so low as bootlickers of others? Is this not the sole reason why the United Kingdom risk everything to leave the European Union so as to assume her role of first to none in her British Commonwealth? If the German or French, will never do this out of pride for their European Union of equals, why must any ECOWAS citizen? Will the Europeans not be asking for how can masters with dignifying role become the poodle of others, because they know the Americans will do the same for their Union?
The story of the role of Ghana and Ghanaians in the British Commonwealth, is nothing to write home about. Like the colony that we have once been, we shall be subjects in the British Commonwealth till the kingdom come. Like the name rightly suggest, the reality about the so called British Commonwealth, is the relationship between British Kingdom and her Empire, consisting of all former British colonies. So the British Commonwealth is actually about the British, as that is what the Empire has always been about. Of the 52 (fifty-two) countries making up the British Commonwealth, Ghana is just a number. The Ghanaian is just one of the 2.3 billion subjects of the British Commonwealth, while the “Britain” organise them all from London.
It is fair to say that the 1.2 billion population of India that also make up the 2.3 billion population of the British Commonwealth, is doing very well in forging a better future for the average Indian. The size of India is making her wrestle herself out of the British control. In fact the story of the Indian wrestling with the British for her independence in 1947, says a lot. A good understanding of the Indian history betray how unwilling the British were in granting the Indians their freedom. Amidst bloodshed, the Indian fought the British for their self determination. The continual membership of Indian in the British Commonwealth is just a matter of time, as I envisage the Indians one day telling the Brits for fob off.
The story is not the same with the 27 million population of Ghana. In fact the British were more than willing to hand over our so called “independence” to us, as they were fully aware life after independence to the Ghanaian will be “meaningless” without the already established British assistance. The British were fully aware of our complicated ethno-tribal nationalistic tendencies and its potency to make it difficult for us to understand the simple concept of ECOWAS. They knew that so long as understanding of ECOWAS remain difficult for the average Ghanaian, having the individual to embrace the ideals of regional body to make it work, will be unrealistic. All the British have longed for is to have the Ghanaian continue to be entrap in the British Commonwealth. Thus the membership of Ghana in the British Commonwealth require a new outlook if Ghana and the Ghanaian, could have a purposeful role in her membership of the British Commonwealth, within ECOWAS.
The interesting thing about former President John Mahama in Kenya is, he seem to be the odd person of all the heads of the election observers. President Mahama is the only person in Kenya to represent his former colonial master, instead of representing his independent country or Union. I do not know whether former president Mahama will be proud in telling anyone that the British Commonwealth is his regional body? I have no doubt that even a donkey will laught at him. Could president Mahama nursing any hope of having his children becoming British enough to head the British Commonwealth?
I am sure former President Tabo Mbeki who is answerable to the African Union, will be proud to say he is representing body of a free people of the African continuent. Mbeki and his children are surely nursing the hope of heading the AU one day, than the institution of a former colonial master. I am sure Senator John Kerry who is answerable to the USA as a Union, will be proud to say he is representing the free citizen of the United States of America. Kerry and his children nurse the hope of heading the USA one day, than the institution of their former colonial master. Ms. Marietje Schaake is currently a member of the EU Parliament who is representing the free people of the EU. Schaake and her children nurse the hope of having the oopportunity of becoming the head of the EU, than serving an institution of her former colonial master. The West African is clearly the odd one here!!
The questions most of us are left with is whether it is necessary to make it mandatory for all high office holders of ECOWAS, past and current, to seek clearance from the regional authority before taking up international responsibilities beyond the ECOWAS jurisdiction? Did former president Mahama even got or required clearance from the Ghana Parliament, to act as a British commonwealth Election observer to Kenya?
If it is alright for former president Mahama to hold such loyalty to his former colonial master, enough to earn their trust to represent the British Commonwealth in Kenya, how do we blame anyone in the French speaking ECOWAS member States for doing the same for the Francophone? So when we had president Mahama as a chairman of ECOWAS, could he have been receiving instructions from the British Commonwealth Office in London, on how to run the our regional body to be in their good book? Who then was her excellency Sirleef Johnson trying to be in their good book and therefore, receiving her instructions as the former Chairperson of ECOWAS? Was the instructions coming from United States of America as Liberia in known to us as an ex- colony of the US? Who is the current chairman of ECOWAS, Faure Gnassingbe receiving his own instructions from, on how to chair our regional body? Could we be blaming Faure for receiving his instructions from France, as a subject of the Frech Commonwealth, when it is alright for Mr. Mahama to place his allegiances with the Commonwealth of the British? What about President Marcel De Souze of the ECOWAS Commission? Could the Commission President’s loyalty be to France, as he seem to remain the subject of the former French Empire?
I recalled four years ago when my former presiden, John Ajyekum Kufour, was in Sierra Leone as the leader of an election observer. We were full of joy to have one of our prominent citizen of ECOWAS deployed to a member state, by the regional body, to be the eyes and eras of our regional authority. We know his words will weigh a lot on the election outcome and when the unexpected happens, ECOWAS can rely on credible bases of timely intervention. We know the presence of the former president will be helpful in telling the EU, USA and the British Commonwealth that we are capable of “managing our own affairs”. Our joy was cut short when we read a newspaper caption “The leader of Commonwealth observer mission, Former President J. A. Kufour to Sierra Leone”. We did not waste time for any clarification as we know, the former head of state was not in Sierra Leone representing the Commonwealth of West Africa but the British Commonwealth.
The biggest challenge now is, how do we overcome this complicated but very delicate fate of ECOWAS? How do we overcome a situation that will stop some one like His Exellency President Mahamdu Buhari from travelling out of West Africa to live in the United Kingdom, for over half a year receiving medical care, when Indian heads of states do not have to leave their electorates to seek for medical care in their former colonial master’s land? How do we have the kind of ECOWAS that will make it less attractive for former heads of ECOWAS member states, like former president Abdillai Wade from retiring to France, while he is politically active in Senegal? How could we stop abnormal bahavour that drive individuals like former president Dramani Mahama, who are so insecure of their future, to jump at anything anyone throw at them? How do we stop assuming the role of representing the British Commonwealth to places like Kenya, only to end up with doing someone’s dirty job?
Like former president Ajykum Akufour and JJ Rawlings, former President John Mahama is a very important personality in Ghana and ECOWAS. These individuals were elected by Ghanaians to serve and protect our dignity, in and after their presidency. The Constitution of Ghana was very clear about the role a former president of Ghana must play, after leaving office. In order to avoid the person being vulnerable to all forms of abuse that could possibly result from desperation for financial renumeration, the Great 1992 Ghana constitution prosciribed that the president shall be paid by the Ghanaian tax payer till death. The constitution then bard the former head of state from any role that will compromise the sovereign pride of Ghana. Now some animals in Kenya are calling our former president names for doing the dirty work of the British Commonwealth for her. So instead of hauling insults at the British, the insults are directed at the Ghanaian.
There is nothing wrong with a very young and energetic person like former President Mahama taking up more challenging roles in the world affair. The question is, does the ECOWAS lack anything meaningful to keep individuals president Mahama busy, than turning our honourable president into an idle errand boy of the colonial masters? Is this not demanding on us the pressure of creating the kind of ECOWAS that wrestle up key role in the world affairs for her citizens, than having each person ending up doing others dirty job for them?
It is time we in West Africa start taking our destiny into our own hands. If John Kerry or Marietje Schaake will only earn their pride in working for their Union or the United Nation but never for any former colonial masters, under the mantra of self determination, why must any ECOWAS citizen be different? Since our self determination is about every West African, let’s intensify our demand to have every West African electorate voting directly for his or her ECOWAS MP. I just wonder why an average West African is finding it difficult to understand that the act of voting directly for an electorate’s representation, is the first step to self determination. The USA Senator and EU MEP Schaake are all directly elected members of their regional parliament, while the indirectly elected members of ECOWAS Parliament is simply hopeless.
Democracy is the only means available for us to free ourselves from the remaining vestiges of conolialism and imperialism. These ills are real and manifest in the daily pathetic lives of the majority of our people. The Europeans have use democracy to change the course of their fate, into a modern viable self determining vehicle. Democracy has proven that the most complicated problem of self determination, can be overcome when everyone is free to elect their representatives directly. If the direct voting has worked for Europe, it shall definitely work for West Africa. It’s time we stop voting for those who vote on our behalf to the ECOWAS Parliament. Let’s vote directly for who we want to represent us in ECOWAS parliament.
Contact ECRA with the email below for us to send you our Mission on PDF attachment. The copy of almost 30 Pages is free of charge. If we all know, then the journey will be easier!!!
Kofi Ali Abdul-Yekin
Chairman ECRA
(ECOWAS Citizens Right Advocates)
07737224787
[email protected]
Pls. Contact us for a PDF free copy of our Mission.
Banking in South Africa Has It’s Own Problems
Consumers in South Africa prefer a digital-first approach to resolving their basic banking issues, only talking to a human being if they have to, according to a new survey from technology company Avaya.
Out of nine countries surveyed, South Africans were the most likely to say they preferred to use a mobile banking app to access their banking services – and they are also most likely to lodge a formal complaint about bad customer service.
The Customer Experience in Banking Survey, conducted with YouGov, queried more than 10,000 banking customers in two waves – the first covering the UK, UAE, India and Australia, and the second South Africa, France, Germany, Italy, and Saudi Arabia.
Given the choice, the most popular method for South Africa customers to contact their bank was via a mobile app, selected by 30% of respondents, compared with 26% in India, 24% in the UAE, and just 10% in France and 8% in Germany.
Online banking was the second-most preferred channel for South Africans, at 26%, with just 18% preferring to visit their branch.
Getting the customer experience right is vital to South African banks as 67% of respondents would lodge a formal complaint with their bank about bad customer service – again the highest out of all nine countries, with just 37% in Saudi Arabia saying they would complain.
South Africans are also second only to Indians in complaining about bad customer service to people they know, with 41% saying they would tell friends and acquaintances.
Only 28% of South Africans would change banks because of bad service, the lowest out of all countries, while South African respondents reported the second-highest highest satisfaction levels, at 89%, below only India’s 93%.
The biggest frustrations South African respondents experience when calling their bank include:
• Being kept waiting for a long time;
• Having calls transferred between customer service agents with the problem not being resolved; and
• Being asked to visit the branch to solve their request.
Regardless of how they choose to contact their bank, 68% of South African customers cited getting the same level of experience and service across all channels as a priority. Following that, customers want their problem to be resolved on the first point of contact, with speaking directly with a customer service agent seen as least important.
Virtual Financial Advisors (VFAs) – representatives from the bank who engage customers through virtual means and service them remotely with online tools – seem to be an ideal solution based on the preferences of South African respondents.
According to the survey, the most valued benefit of having a VFA to South African customers is being able to get faster resolutions on their banking inquiries, followed by notifications for issues such as being overdrawn, problematic or suspicious transactions, and credit card renewal.
Source: Samuel Bediako-Asante
