JASIKAN COLLECTS GH¢8,000 FOR DEVELOPMENT (PAGE 22, DEC 21, 2010)

MORE than GH¢8,000 was realised at a fund-raising ceremony in aid of development projects at Jasikan in the Volta Region at the weekend.
It was organised by the Jasikan Town Development Committee under the auspices of Mr Henry Ford Kamel, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Buem, and his friends.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Kamel urged the people to be ready to complement the government’s efforts by contributing generously towards the development of the area.
He said the resources of the nation could not meet all the needs of the people at the same time.
The MP commended the people for their initiative in organising the ceremony and expressed the hope that whatever was realised would be put to good use.
The Chairman of the Town Development Committee, Mr Edwin Asiamah, said it was high time Jasikan marched alongside the other district capitals in the country.
Mr Asiamah stated that Jasikan was an old town and one of the most developed in the region, but its development had been retarded when the cocoa boom collapsed some 20 years ago.
“Now is the time for us to position ourselves to take the development of the town into our own hands,” he stressed.

HEALTH INSURANCE STAFF WARNED AGAINST DEALS (BACK PAGE, DEC 15, 2010)

THE Volta Regional Manager of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Elliot Nestor Akototse, has cautioned officials of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) who collaborate with staff of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to engage in fraudulent deals to desist from that act.
Mr Akototse called for a plan between the two organisations to flush out cheating officials to save the image of the organisations and ensure the sustenance of the scheme.
The regional manager gave the caution in Ho last Tuesday during a regional review meeting of stakeholders, including district co-ordinating directors and insurance officials, to find out the challenges facing the scheme and map out effective strategies to tackle them for sustainability of the NHIS.
Mr Akototse said the two organisations were symbiotic in relationship in the service of the common client and noted that the service of the GHS had improved tremendously since the NHIS came into operation but conceded that there were lapses in the operations.
He announced that this year, the NHIA had released GH¢7,590,000 to Members of Parliament (MPs) through the GHS District Director’s Fund for health-related projects in the region.
Mr Akototse said the late submission of claims by service providers was the bane of the operations of the NHIS, noting that late submissions delayed payment.
The Volta Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Timothy Letsa, expressed satisfaction at the turn up of the officials which he hoped would assist remove the malfeasance which had engulfed the scheme over the years.
He said as of the end of last year, 80 per cent of internally generated funds had come from insured clients and that the NHIS had been of immense assistance to the operations of the GHS.
He called on the participants to take the workshop seriously, since it would be beneficial to all.

TSIBU YOUTH ACADEMY TRAINS 31 (PAGE 46, DEC 8, 2010)

A skills training centre, Tsibu Youth Academy has trained 31 youth from Dededo, a farming community in the Ho Municipality of the Volta Region with employable skills.
This was done with the sponsorship of Mr Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, the Member of Parliament for Ho-West in addition to self-support by the participants.
The participants comprising 24 females and seven males who are mostly farmers received training in catering, hairdressing, dress and batik making, soap making, basic electrical and entrepreneurship.
Togbe Azadagli Dededo I, Chief of Dededo commended the MP, Mr Bedzrah for his immense financial assistance to the participants in acquiring skills.
Togbe Dededo I further although that was necessary, the community of Dededo also needed adequate and decent educational infrastructure for their schools, health centre, sanitation facilities and above all a police station to maintain peace and order in the area.
Mr Bedzrah, the MP for the area hoped that the graduates can now improve upon their lots by applying the skills they have acquired.
Mr Bedzrah said he was seeking for financial assistance for them to put them on their feet. He called on them to remain united and rally behind the government to ensure the success of the “Better Ghana Agenda” of the government.
The MP assured them that very soon the electrification they have been calling for all these years would come to them.

NEW BOARD OF KASHS INAUGURATED (PAGE 42, DEC 8, 2010)

A THIRTEEN-MEMBER reconstituted Board of Governors of the Kadjebi-Asato Senior High School (KASHS) to manage the affairs of the school for a three-year term, has been inaugurated at Kadjebi in the Volta Region.
The new board, which is yet to choose its chairperson, replaces the former one which has been in existence for the past six years.
Inaugurating the board, the Kadjebi District Chief Executive, Mr Seth Alifo charged the members to get in touch with the old boys and girls to contribute their quota to the rehabilitation of the school.
Mr Alifo expressed gratitude to the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of the school which was assisting to accommodate the fresh intake of students this academic year.
The outgoing chairman of the board, Mr Anthony Gyambiby said during their tenure of office, the school moved from Grade ‘B’ to Grade B+.
He, therefore, commended the members for working hard with the school authorities towards the achievement of that status.
Mr Gyambiby expressed the hope that the new board would keep the flame burning to ensure that the school moved a step further to Grade ‘A’ in the near future.
He called on the Regional Minister to consider using part of the vast land given to the school for the establishment of satellite campus of the proposed Volta Regional University.
According to Mr Gyambiby, the 569 acres of land at the disposal of the school would be more profitably used if the suggestion was considered.
The headmaster of the school, Mr Thomas Fordjour-Ababio in a welcoming address, said the school was making good use of the land available to go into agriculture.
Mr Fordjour-Ababio said last year, the school cropped 20 acres of maize from which it harvested 100 maxi bags.
He said they also cultivated six acres of rice which were yet to be harvested, adding that the school could also boast of 19 pigs and 11 piglets.
The headmaster said apart from the 100 per cent pass the institution chalked in the 2009 West Africa Senior High School Certificate Eamination, 295 out of the 350 students presented for the examination, passed in six or more subjects.
He said in sports, the school had been taking the first position in all disciplines at zonal levels in the region.

KADJEBI-ASATO SHIS BOARD RECONSTITUTED (PAGE 11, DEC 8, 2010)

A 13-MEMBER reconstituted Board of Governors of the Kadjebi-Asato Senior High School (KASHS), to steer the affairs of the school for a three-year term, has been inaugurated at Kadjebi in the Volta Region.
The new board, which is yet to choose its chairperson, replaces the former one which had been in existence for the past six years.
Inaugurating the 13-member board, Mr Seth Alifo, the Kadjebi District Chief Executive, charged the members of the committee to get in touch with the old boys and girls to contribute their quota to the rehabilitation of the school.
Mr Alifo expressed his profound gratitude to the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of the school which was assisting them to accommodate fresh students this academic year.
The out going chairman of the old board, Mr Anthony Gyambiby, said during their tenure of office, the school moved from Grade B to Grade B+, and therefore, commended the members for working hard with the school authorities towards the achievement of that status.
Mr Gyambiby hoped the new board “will keep the flame burning” to ensure that the school moves a step further to Grade A in the near future.
He called on Mr Joseph Amenowode, the Regional Minister, to consider using part of the vast land given to the school for the establishment of a Satellite campus of the proposed Volta Regional University.
According to Mr Gyambiby, the 569 acres of land at the disposal of the school would be more profitably used if the suggestion was considered.
Mr Thomas Fordjour-Ababio, the Headmaster of the school, in a welcoming address, said the school was making good use of the land available to them by going into agriculture.
Mr Fordjour-Ababio said last year, they cropped 20 acres of land with maize from where they harvested 100 maxi bags. They also cropped six acres with rice which they have not yet harvested. They are also into animal husbandry; rearing 19 pigs and 11 piglets.
That, the headmaster said, was not at the expense of academic performance. He said apart from the 100 per cent pass they scored in 2009 WASCE, 295 out of the 350 students they presented passed in six or more subjects. “That meant that about 84 per cent of them could gained outright admission to tertiary institutions,” the headmaster pointed out. He said the school’s objective was to move from category B to A, step up their performance in Mathematics and also work towards the Head of State Award.
He said in sports, the school continued to take the first position in all disciplines in the zone and in the region. He said, at the moment, the school was confronted with problems of infrastructure, particularly inadequate classroom accommodation, classroom furniture and the dining hall, following the intake of new SSS 1 students.
He said the school was challenged with inadequate staff, inadequate classroom and furniture and water supply and power. Due to the inadequate academic staff, some of them teach as many as 30 or 40 periods a week instead of the maximum 25 for a graduate teacher.

ANFOETA-TSEBI INAUGURATES WATER PROJECT (BACK PAGE, DEC 7, 2010)

THE people of Anfoeta Tsebi in the Ho municipality of the Volta Region have, through self-help, provided themselves with pipe-borne water at an estimated cost of GH¢45,000.
The project was inaugurated by the Deputy Minister of Transport, Mrs Dzifa Ativor.
Through the industry of the people, water has been directed from a gravity water facility provided them by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) some 14 years ago through a piped system to 11 standpipes in the town.
Before the pipe system, the people had to travel about three kilometres to fetch water from the source.
In an address, Mrs Ativor reiterated the government’s intention to extend its better Ghana agenda to every nook and cranny of the country.
She asked the youth to embrace the youth-in-agriculture programme with all their strength, since it would stop them from trooping to the urban areas to add up to the unemployment there.
Mrs Ativor told them that whatever they produced on their farms would be bought by the Buffer Stock Company set up by the government to ensure that they had access to markets.
The deputy minister announced that the Dzolokpuita-Bume road which passes through the town had been awarded on contract to Messrs Muudu Construction and that work would start soon.
In his keynote address, Mr E. F. Boateng, the Volta Regional Director of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), commended the people for keeping the facility provided them 14 years ago functioning and improving upon it. “This speaks for itself the value you place on what has been given to you,” he said.
He was sure that once the facility had been inaugurated and handed over to them, they would assume full responsibility for it and manage it as they had done the gravity facility.
“The facility has to be operated in a sustainable way for generations yet unborn to come and enjoy it,” he urged them.
Mr Boateng advised that since the components of the facility would surely break down one day, it was necessary to generate revenue for repairs and maintenance for continuous access.
Consequently, he commended them for adopting a pay-as-you–fetch system which was the best way to manage the system.
He noted that as the provision of water meant improvement in health, they should practise personal hygiene and observe basic sanitation rules to make the package complete.
“Let us go a step further from drinking potable water to washing our hands with soap at critical times,” he admonished.
In his welcoming address, Mr Nelson Bright Klu, the Assembly Member for the area, commended the self-help spirit of the people.
Through that spirit, he said, they had constructed a day-care centre, a three-unit classroom block for the primary school and an electrification project.

CONTRACTS AWARDED FOR SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE ...ASSURES MAHAMA (PAGE 11, DEC 6, 2010)

THE Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has assured boards and managements of senior high schools that contracts have been awarded for the construction of critical infrastructure in schools to ensure that all their needs were met.
He has, therefore, urged them to endeavour to manage with their existing facilities till the government is able to address their infrastructural needs.
Mr Mahama said this in an address read on his behalf by Mr Joseph Amenowode, the Volta Regional Minister, at the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Bueman Senior High School (BUSEC) at Jasikan in the Volta Region.
The Vice-President expressed his satisfaction at the fact that BUSEC had benefited from the construction of a seven-classroom block valued at GH¢26,000 and noted that the necessary documentation was being made to extend similar facilities to more schools.
“I strongly believe that human resource development is the surest way to the attainment of accelerated economic development”, he said.
And because of BUSEC’s contribution to the human resource base of the country, their physical facilities are being improved to promote further educational development, the Vice-President stated.
He was enthused by the theme of the celebration “50 years of academic excellence: success and challenges in a deprived environment”, and called on all stakeholders to remain dedicated to the goals of the school’s founding fathers.
The Vice-President gave the reminder that the success of the “Better Ghana Agenda” needed a commitment to a superior educational delivery.
He commended the founding fathers of the school and successive boards of management for imbuing in the students the sense of academic excellence, moral uprightness and hard work.
Mr Mahama urged the present crop of students to also endeavour to take up these qualities as key to their individual and collective advancement.
Mr Henry Ford Kamel, Member of Parliament for Buem Constituency and Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, commended the school for its achievement over the years.
“You have contributed your quota to national development through the very personalities engaged in various endeavours countrywide”, Mr Ford Kamel said.
The MP called on the school authorities to aspire to make the school a centre of excellence and thus compete with the well-endowed schools, which calls for hard work and dedication to realise the vision of the school.
In his report, Mr Francis Ametefe, the Headmaster of BUSEC, said whereas some schools were finding it a problem to absorb the present first year students, BUSEC could absorb up to 500 of them. “But as of now, only 215 freshers have reported”, he lamented.
The school, he said, started in 1960 by the late Mr Christopher Kwaku Nayo of Old Baika in 1960 with 12 students and a staff of five, now has 1,173 students.
He said from rented premises, the school was fortunate to benefit from the government’s model status policy.
He noted that the school had over the past eight years moved up in its academic achievements.
“From a 79 per cent pass in 2001 in the WASCE, there has been a steady progress to 99 per cent in 2009”, he said.
On challenges facing the school, Mr Ametefe mentioned the delays in the payment of government scholarships and GETFund subsidies.
“Students under our care should be catered for and their needs cannot be suspended until funds are available”, he said.
He also mentioned the lack of accommodation for the staff, pointing out that there were only five bungalows on the compound to accommodate 60 teaching and non-teaching staff.
He regretted that though they had an ICT laboratory, it was not equipped with computers.
He therefore, appealed to the government to assist them with computers.

BRIBING THE GODS...A tale of culture-induced calamities at Atimpoku (SHOWBIZ, DEC 2, 2010, PAGE 20)

By Emmanuel Modey

It is 6 o’clock in the morning on May 8, 2010. The youth of Atimpoku are aggrieved. They are on the street, some wielding sticks and machetes. And why not? The previous farming and fishing seasons have not been favourable to them. They think the gods have been bribed.
“What!”
“Yes, they have bribed the gods.”
“How?”
“Why should there be a funeral for that man?”
“Which man?”
“ Kofi Puni (not real name) of course!”
“And why not? He’s one of us!”
“Don’t you remember he died through an accident?”
That was Jackson Darko, the organiser of the Atimpoku Youth Association, who is also a popular herbalist, linking the recent calamities of deaths, accidents and poor harvests to the disregard of the laid-down traditions and customs for a deceased who died through drowning.
Atimpoku, located in the Asuogyaman District of the Eastern Region, is a predominantly fishing community, said to have been founded by three prominent personalities, including Komfo Adu, a renowned fetish priest who lived in the 1870’s
According to Kofi Asare, also known as Wone-kele, a great grandson of Komfo Adu, the natives are strongly attached to their customs and traditions, particularly those related to funerals. Like many other ethnic groups in the country and elsewhere, the people of Atimpoku consider as a taboo, accidental or unnatural deaths, which they call in their local parlance Atofowuo, and therefore, no proper funerals are not organised for such victims.
But same cannot be said about such funerals in recent times, because of a vacuum created in the traditional leadership of the town by the death of the paramount chief about four years ago. As a result, some of the traditions regarding funerals are said to have been ignored.
Some youth in the town who believe that some elders are exploiting the situation to their advantage, are accusing them (the elders) of “bribing the gods.”
“These unscrupulous elders collect huge amounts of money from the families of deceased persons on the pretext of soliciting the permission of the gods to organize such funerals” said Jackson
“But these turn out to be hoax, as the messages of the gods are misinterpreted to suit their whims and caprices. The demands by these elders which are purported to have been that of the gods, are usually a clever way of extorting money from the innocent.”
As in the case of most Akan communities, the people of Atimpoku organise their funerals on Thursdays and Saturdays. On the death of a person, his/her family informs the chief and elders of the town with a bottle of schnapps, two bottles of ‘akpetshie” and five bottles of soft drinks. A date is thus set by the family members for the organisation of the funeral.
During the funeral which usually starts at noon after the burial had taken place in the morning, the leaders and members of the deceased’s family sit at the funeral grounds known as the bedwam for sympathisers and well-wishers to mourn with them.
Traditional forms of music, dance and drumming, such as Adowa and Kete, are used to entertain the mourners. In this funeral, mourners usually put on black and red clothes to signify their state of grief. However, in the event of the death of an elder person of 70 years and above, black and white clothes are usually preferred, as a form of celebrating his or her longevity.
In all of these cases, mourners are served with all kinds of drinks and food, whilst they also show their appreciation by making donations (normally monetary) to defray part of the cost that may have been incurred in the organisation of the funerals.
In the situation of accidental deaths or atofowuo which is deemed as a taboo, the above-mentioned rites are not permissible. In this scenario, the family members, after taking the body from the morgue are not allowed to bring it home, but rather to the burial ground or the cemetery where the coffin is opened briefly for people to look at the body.
Family members, after the burial, go back to the chief’s palace for the necessary rituals to be performed to appease the gods, whom they deem to be angry at the death.
Jackson’s view about this is that; “Culture at Atimpoku is being adulterated by “bribing” the gods who are supposed to be the spiritual custodians of customs and traditions.” The big question is, Can the gods be bribed?

KRASEC LAUNCHES 40 YEARS ANNIVERSARY (PAGE 11, DEC 1, 2010)

THE 40th anniversary celebration of the Krachi Senior High School (KRASEC), which comes off in November next year, has been launched at a ceremony in Kete Krachi in the Volta Region.
Nana Mprah Besemuna III, Paramount Chief of the Krachi Traditional Area, launched the anniversary programme which includes a home-coming activity, sporting activities, clean-up campaign and a procession through the principal streets of the town.
The Paramount Chief advised the students that discipline had been the hallmark of success and that their presence there was to be equipped with knowledge and skills necessary to make them live a responsible life in future.
“You must know that your being in this school is to make you a useful citizen for the future development of the country, hence the need to take your studies seriously”, Nana Besemuna said.
He said that the school could now boast as being one of the most endowed in the region, saying that even if it might not be the best, it could be among the best.
“The school now has computer facility and can boast of being hooked to the Internet. It, however, needs a new computer laboratory to accommodate the 50 computers and two printers it has at the moment,” he said.
He was happy with the level of discipline that had been introduced and assured the headmaster that they would stand by him to ensure that discipline was maintained to the highest standard.
The Paramount Chief called on the staff to rally behind the new headmaster to ensure that the school improved further.
Mr Musah Issahaku Yamba, the Headmaster of KRASEC commended the board and staff for allowing him the peace of mind to work to improve upon teaching and learning in the school he met.
“The attitude of teachers has changed for the better due to the democratic method of education that has been instituted, where teachers see themselves as part of the decision-making process with the determination to turn out well-behaved students, ” he said.
The determination, together with staff motivation had enhanced academic work and to ensure strict discipline in the school, the headmaster said he felt it necessary to introduce a police cadet corps fully equipped with a regimental band.
Mr Yamba said to incorporate the school into the society, the administration together with the board decided to name the dormitories after prominent persons in the Krachi community.
Thus, names of houses like House one, two, three and four had been substituted with Nana Mprah III, Nana Asetena, Nana Denteh and Nana Obridjow, respectively.
On agriculture, he said, the school cultivated six acres of maize but due to unfavourable weather conditions, they could not make any profitable yield. But 3,000 trees planted around the school were doing very well.
Mr Yamba said one of the major successes of the school was that they were connected to the Internet and expressed the school’s appreciation to Nana Mprah III.
He mentioned challenges facing the school which included both academic and non-academic accommodation such as girls’ dormitory, classrooms and dormitories for first year students, potable water and the need to complete infrastructure such as the assembly hall, gate and the computer laboratory.

LIBERTY ROUT B. A. STARS (BACK PAGE, NOV 29, 2010)

Kpando Heart of Lions were held to a 1-1 drawn game by Accra Hearts of Oak in their Glo Premier League encounter at the Kpando Stadium yesterday.
Playing the greater part of the game, Lions could not take advantage of the numerous chances they created, especially in the first half.
Against the run of play, Hearts got the first goal following a blunder by defender, Kweku Andoh, who fouled Uriah Asante after dispossessing him of the ball in the Lions half.
Kumasi-based referee, Lord Vuvor, did not hesitate to whistle for an infringement which was expertly taken by Obed Ansah, only for Douglas Nkrumah to lob the ball over on-rushing Joseph Addo in post for Lions.
This was after veteran goalkeeper Sammy Adjei had saved a goal-bound shot by Lions striker Gilbert Fiamenyo in the 19th minute.
After recess, Lions, with their pride at stake, made two quick changes by bringing on Gladson Awako and Godfred Asante for Isaac Morgan and Prosper Avor respectively to strengthen the midfield. The changes paid off perfectly in the 75th minute when Asante headed home a cross from left winger, Mohammed Yakubu.
In the 80th minute, Lions had another chance to increase the tally but a goal-bound shot from the foot of Awako was headed out of the post by teammate, Fiamenyo, who wasted not less than three glorious chances.

A TRIP UP THE AKOSOMBO DAM (SHOWBIZ, PAGE20, NOV 18, 2010)

By Emmanuel Modey

A GREEN Tata bus pulled up. In it were excited students of Baidoo Bensoe Secondary Technical School, who had come many kilometres away from Agona Ahanta in the Western Region to see the Akosombo Dam.
“We are here to show the students at first-hand what they have learnt about in class”, Mr. Nathaniel Osiban, a Social Studies teacher of the school, said.
Just like these students had come to verify their class lesson, every year, over 35,000 people, including high profile personalities, visit the Akosombo Dam to satisfy their curiosity in various ways.
According to Mr Nii Noi Thompson, an official of the Volta River Authority (VRA), on a busy day, about 50 different groups, families and individuals tour the dam.
/Even when expectations were high that Ghanaians would be glued to their television sets to watch the much hyped football game between Ghana and Australia in the ongoing World Cup tournament, people still found time to visit the dam.
Mr. Issa Bangura, a Sierra Leonean and a first time visitor to Ghana attending a workshop, was happy that at long last he had fulfilled his dream of visiting the Akosombo Dam.
“It's wonderful, it is well constructed and beyond my imagination. Ghana is beautiful and I am definitely going to come back to visit!”
Mr. Bangura had another reason for visiting the dam. As a Senior Superintendent at the Sierra Leon Power Authority, he is naturally interested in anything about electricity generation.
Mr. Bangura has promised to come back with his family. “I love Ghana even though it is expensive.”
Some students from James Madison University in Virginia, USA, were also at the dam. They said they came to Ghana for a course but they also wanted to see interesting places in the country, so their professor arranged for them to see the Akosombo Dam.
Ms Theresa Llewellyn, a student from the University, said she had never heard about the Akosombo Dam, so she was excited to see it.
“It's amazing. I will recommend it to a friend to visit”, she said.
For Ms. Lenise Mazyck, another student, pointing to a little rock from the embankment which showed the effect of the interaction of water with rocks, the tour of the dam had provided her with a concrete proof of something she had studied in her Anthropology class.
“Wow, this is it!”, she exclaimed.
Just before the arrival of the American students, a group of physicians from Hungary, Italy and Germany who are on a medical outreach at the Comboni Centre in Sogakofe, had taken time off to visit the dam.
“We came to see what engineers from my country have built”, the Italian physician said.
The Akosombo dam was built by Italian engineers from the Italian company, Impreglio, with Kaiser engineers from the United States of America as consultants.
Mr. Emmanuel Kwao, a Ghanaian tourist, said he had only seen the dam in pictures and had always desired to see it. He therefore saved some money purposely for this trip.
Unlike the students from Baidoo Bonsoe who were on an educational trip, Mr. Kwao was there for pleasure.
According to Mr Noi Thompson, very important persons also visit the dam. Over a period of about six months from late last year to early this year, about five such visitors came to the dam.
Former President Kaunda of Zambia, the late President Yar'Adua of Nigeria and Mr Liverpool, the President of the Dominican Republic, readily come to mind, according to the source.
For the people living around the dam, the influx of tourists is an opportunity to experience different cultures.
“We see many different people, hear different languages, differences in the type of clothing, and you will not believe that we can tell the difference between a German and a French national”, a resident who didn't want to go on record said.
“The Akosombo Dam is a very large man-made lake, covering an area of 8,502 square kilometres it is the largest man-made lake in the world.” It takes 36 hours to travel round the lake. The dam is made of sand, clay and rocks without cement to bind them. The technical officers at the VRA appropriately call it the rock-filled embankment.
In size, the Akosombo Dam is 2,200 ft long, 440ft high and 1,400ft wide at the base. The dam's six hoses that carry water to turn six eighty-ton turbines to generate electricity are 24 metres in diameter.
The turbines turn 115 times in a minute and releases hydro-power providing a source of electricity for Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo.
Even though the Chinese are building a dam they claim will be the largest in the world, for the time being, as the VRA official noted, “The Akosombo dam is the largest, and will continue to be a tourist site for local and international visitors for a long time to come because of its peculiar characteristics.”

EDUCATION MUST LIBERATE THE MIND — AGBOGBOMEFIA (SPREAD, NO 15, 2010)

The Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbe Afede XIV, has stated that a good educational system must liberate the minds of future leaders and equip them with creative and innovative skills, lest they become smart conformists and custodians of the status quo, instead of agents of change that the country needs.
In an address at a durbar to climax the 60th anniversary of Mawuli School in Ho, Togbe Afede said, “It is not about the length of pre-university education; neither is it a question of how it is labelled. So the starting point is an appreciation of the true purpose of education.”
He said the school system must begin to inculcate discipline and honesty, self-confidence, a sense of independence, hard work, absolute commitment to the chosen careers, altruism, tolerance and the ability to think positively and persevere in future leaders.
In an address read on his behalf, the Vice President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, noted that Mawuli School had produced very important personalities who found themselves in all spheres of national life and were serving in various responsible positions in the country and elsewhere.
He, therefore, urged the current school board, the management, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and all stakeholders not to be complacent with achievements but continuously strive for the attainment of the best for the school.
Mr Mahama said human capital formation and development was central to the government’s efforts at building a better Ghana and that the educational system was being accordingly engineered and retooled to meet national hopes and aspirations.
The Vice President advised students to eschew negative practices such as laziness, dishonesty, the use of hard drugs and cyber fraud and rather adopt the virtues of hard work, discipline and honesty in order to propel the development of the nation faster and in the right direction.
The headmaster of the school, Mr J.M.K. Osei-Nyansa, said the school had produced about 15,000 students, who are contributing to the socio-economic development of Ghana and the world.
He said the current student population was 1,351, comprising 491 girls and 860 boys, with a staff strength of 69 teachers and 74 non-teaching staff.
In a solidarity message, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Right Reverend Francis Amenu, said it was imperative to invest in Mawuli School and the EP Church in order for them to cope with the dynamics of the technological era.
“The time for positive action to rebuild the school is, indeed, now to adequately meet and live fruitfully the dream and vision of the founding fathers in terms of human capital development,” he said.
In a welcoming address, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the school, Reverend Frank Anku, charged all past students and other stakeholders to be genuinely committed to the cause of the school.
The Chairman of the Council of State, Professor Kofi Awoonor, later inaugurated a new administration block for the school to commemorate its 60th anniversary.
The edifice, which is valued at GH¢30 million, was funded by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).

GIVE OTI SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL BOARDING FACILITIES (PAGE 57, NOV 15, 2010)

THE Headmaster of the Oti Senior High School in the Krachi-East District of the Volta Region, Mr George Torme, has appealed to the government to provide it with boarding facilities and also put the school under the Northern Scholarship Scheme.
The school, which is in a deprived area and educating the children of farmers and fishermen, who produce food to feed the nation, is a day institution where all the students pay fees.
In an interview, Mr Torme said that was making learning and teaching very difficult since most of the students had to pay their own fees.
He said most of the 732 students, comprising 530 boys and 222 girls, travelled long distances on bicycles or on foot to the school daily.
The school, the headmaster said, was established in 1991 but lacked infrastructure like furniture, classrooms, administrative block, science laboratory and a vehicle, stressing that “indeed, over 60 per cent of the students, especially the fresh ones do not have furniture”.
“We also have no vehicle, so we rely on hired vehicles, which comes at a high cost”, the headmaster said.
Mr Torme commended the Parent-Teacher Association for providing some furniture and also helping the school over the years, something he thought could not go on forever.
He also thanked the Krachi East District Assembly for assisting them with a three-classroom block to alleviate their plight.
In spite of all these problems, the headmaster said the school was expecting an additional 300 new students, who had started coming in for courses in Business, Agriculture, Technical Skills and General Arts.

INVOLVE PRIVATE SECTOR IN ORGANISATION OF TEACHERS' AWARDS (PAGE 46, NOV 10, 2010)

THE Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Amenowode, has advised the Ghana Education Service (GES) to involve the private sector in the organisation of the best teacher award programmes in order to attract enticing awards for deserving teachers.
Mr Amenowode said if the appropriate approaches were made to the public, the GES might receive the right responses.
“Everybody, no matter his standing in society, was once taught by a teacher,” the regional minister said.
Mr Amenowode was addressing district directors of education at a dinner he organised for them to close their week-long workshop at Ho in the Volta Region.
He noted that if this was done, the awards scheme would be broadened to benefit more teachers who were doing their best to put Ghana where it was.
“If we leave the organisation of the teachers awards entirely to the government, the scheme would not be sustainable due to the limited resources available,” he said.
The regional minister urged the directors to utilise the skills and knowledge they had acquired at the workshop in their various directorates and help to improve the standard of education in the country.
“You are the pivot around which the various government interventions to revamp the educational sector will revolve so you must be seen to be doing your best wherever you are”, he said.
“Our teachers are in your hands, you should ensure that they always do their work well to raise the standard of education by performing to best of their abilities,” he added.
That, he said, did not mean they should become dictators and high-handed, victimise and transfer teachers to inaccessible places on very flimsy excuses.
“You should at all times project yourselves as role models to your teachers and the society at large”, he advised.
Mr Amenowode commended the directors for their services so far and urged them not to relent in developing themselves for the betterment of the educational sector.

FLOODS CAUSE HAVOC AT DAMBAI (BACK PAGE, NOV 10, 2010)

FLOODS continue to cause havoc in parts of the Volta Region, with Dambai in the Krachi East District the latest to be affected.
Following a heavy downpour, at the weekend, which caused the Oti River to overflow its banks, 89 communities in Dambai and the Volta Lakeside areas have been inundated with floods.
About 200 houses at Dambai and 500 in the lakeside area as well as acres of farmlands and livestock have been affected.
Hundreds of residents have been displaced and now live with families and friends while others have moved into classrooms and churches.
The Krachi East District Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Donkor Attah-Gyamfi, who toured the affected areas on Monday, advised residents to yield to earlier warnings and re-locate to higher grounds.
Owners of some of the flooded houses were moving their property, including the roofing sheets of the houses, to safer grounds.
The NADMO co-ordinator appealed to benevolent organisations and institutions to come to the aid of the affected persons.

THE CHURCH MUST SUPPORT BETTER GHANA AGENDA — AMENOWODE (SPREAD, NOV 9, 2010)

THE Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Amenowode, has thrown a challenge to the church to assist in the realisation of the Better Ghana agenda of President John Evans Atta Mills.
He said the church could use its platform to educate Ghanaians on the policies and programmes of the government to improve the socio-economic conditions of the country.
Mr Amenowode made the call at a thanksgiving service in the Hohoe Municipality on Sunday to climax activities marking the centenary celebration of the Akpafu Odomi Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana.
The celebration was on the theme: “Enhancing Human Dignity”.
The Regional Minister, who is aso a Member of Parliament for Hohoe South, said it was prudent to call on the church, as partners of development, to join forces with the government to work towards the achievement of the aspirations and hopes of the people.
He called on all, especially the youth, to take advantage of the various programmes that the government had introduced to enhance their welfare and mentioned the various modules of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), the Forest Plantation Development and the Youth in Agriculture programme as examples.
He commended the EP Church for its role in the propagation of the gospel over the years to change society for the better.
Delivering the sermon, Rt Revd Francis Amenu, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the E.P Church, urged Christians not to be detracted by the difficulties in life but continue to keep faith with the Lord.
Rev. Mrs A.A. Obro–Adibo, Akpafu District Pastor, in recounting the history of the church at Odomi, said it began with the first catechist teacher sent from Akpafu Todzi to Odomi in 1910 and paid glowing tribute to the first missionary pastor, Herman Schosser, for sowing the seed of salvation that had grown from 1910 to be a hundred years today.

BISHOP INSPECTS HO SCHOOL FACILITIES (PAGE 46, NOV 8, 2010)

The Right Reverend Francis Anani Lodonu, Bishop of Ho Diocese, has undertaken a familiarisation tour of schools under his diocese to acquaint himself with their readiness to accommodate fresh students.
The day's tour took him round five Roman Catholic schools, namely O.L.A. Girls' Senior High School, Mater Ecclesiae School at Sokode-Gbogame, Bishop Herman Boys College (BIHECO) at Kpando and St Mary's Seminary Senior High School (SMASCO) at Lolobi-Kumasi.
During the tour, Rt. Revd Lodonu learnt the various interventions by the schools authorities to accommodate the students since the new structures intended for them were at various stages of completion.
At OLA, which was his first port of call where he was briefed by Mrs Benedicta Afesi, Headmistress of the school, he was told that the school received 275 new students and that certain structures had been converted into classrooms and dormitories.
At the Mater Ecclesiae School, Rev. Sister Peace Omega said the school, which started in 1993 with 30 students, now had a population of 439.
She said though the school was one of the best in the region, they had no accommodation for staff, computer laboratory, science laboratory and inadequate dormitories for the students.
At BIHECO, Rev. Father Walter Agbeto, said though there were classrooms to take fresh students, the school lacked dormitories. He said out of the 364 students given admission to the school, 261 had reported.
He said to solve the problem of dormitory accommodation, the school had converted some classrooms into dormitories but some of the students had to sleep on the floor in the assembly hall.
Another problem was the lack of a places of convenience for the first-year students. This had compelled the school's authorities to construct a temporary pit latrine for them.
He appealed to the contractor, who is supposed to begin work on the construction of the emergency dormitory for the school, to begin work.
At SMASCO where out of 224 students posted to the school, 125 had arrived, there was congestion so some of the classrooms had to be converted into dormitories for the students to sleep on the floor.
At each of the schools, Rt. Revd Lodonu, after noting their challenges, urged the students to utilise the limited resources at their disposal since the government was doing its best to solve their problems.
'You should persevere and work hard to surmount your challenges', the Bishop said.
He also urged the students to bear with the school authorities since the problems were not their making.
“Yours is to concentrate on your books so that you will be able to make yourself ready to enjoy the fruits of your labour”, he advised.

VOLTA POLICE ARE LOOKING FOR HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER (PAGE 51, NOV 8, 2010)

The Volta Regional Police Command has mounted an intensive search for Foster Addo, 44, an unemployed driver whose vehicle knocked and killed a motorbike rider and his pillion rider on the spot at Abaun near Kpando on Saturday, September 25, 2010.
Foster was driving a water tanker vehicle with registration number GV 7300V belonging to the Ghana Water Company Limited when the accident occurred.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) David Nenyi Ampah-Bennin, the Volta Regional Commander of Police, Foster was sent by his uncle, who is an employee of GWCL, to use his vehicle to cash some money from his bank account at Kpando.
DCOP Ampah-Bennin said the police found the vehicle he was driving intact with his pair of sandals and a mobile phone in the vehicle but could not find the person.
He said the police were, therefore, appealing to the general public to assist in locating Foster for a handsome reward.

MUSLIMS IN JASIKAN GRATEFUL TO NDC (PAGE 13, NOV 6, 2010)

A delegation of Muslims in the Jasikan District of the Volta Region has expressed appreciation for the concern shown by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the years for their welfare.
The Muslims were particularly happy that apart from what the government was doing for them, Mr Henry Ford Kamel, the Member of Parliament for Buem Constituency, was also on his own contributing his quota.
The Muslims said this when Mr Kamel met party members, Assembly Members and a cross section of the public at Jasikan last week.
The leadership of the communities of Kotokoli and Hausa at Jasikan Zongo, led by Alhaji Ibrahim Adam noted the MP on his own volition was sending five Muslims to Mecca for this year’s Hajj.
Apart from that, Alhaji Adam said Mr Kamel had succeeded in having a Muslim to represent their interest on the Lands Commission and also one as head of the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) in the district.
He said for his non-partisanship in his approach towards the welfare of the people, especially Muslims, some members who were not members of the NDC had decided to join the party.
Mr Kamel commended the delegation for their show of appreciation towards the NDC government.
He said the President in his role as the father of the nation did not discriminate in his duty to the people.
“And with me as the MP for the constituency, I will not look for membership cards when it comes to my service to you,” Mr Kamel said
The MP said all that he expected of them was unity and peace to ensure a rapid development of the district.

SOLICIT ENTICING PRIZES FOR TEACHERS (MIRROR, PAGE 35, NOV 6, 2010)

From Emmanuel Modey, Ho

MR Joseph Amenowode, the Volta Regional Minister, has advised the Ghana Education Service (GES) to get the public sector involved in the running of their Best Teacher Award programmes to be able to lay hands on enticing awards for deserving teachers.
Mr Amenowode said when the appropriate approaches were made to the public, the right responses would be forthcoming.
“Everybody, no matter his standing in society, was once taught by a teacher,” the Regional Minister said.
Mr Amenowode was addressing the various District Directors of Education during a dinner dance he held for them to close a national workshop at Ho in the Volta Region.
He noted that when this was done, the award scheme would be broadened to benefit more teachers who are doing their best to put Ghana where it is.
“If we leave it entirely to the government, the scheme would not be sustainable due to the limited resources available,” he said.
The Regional Minister urged the Directors to go back to their various secretariats to implement the skills and knowledge they have acquired at the workshop to improve education.
“You are the pivot around which the various interventions put up by government to revamp the educational sector will revolve so you must be seen to be putting in your best wherever you are,” he said.
“Our teachers are in your hands. You should ensure that they always do their work well to raise the standard of education by performing to the best of your abilities,” he said.
That, he said, did not mean they should assume dictatorship and high-handedness on the teachers by victimising them and transferring them to inaccessible places on very flimsy excuses.
“You should at all times project yourselves as role models to your teachers and the society at large,” he added.
Mr Amenowode commended the directors for their services so far but urged them not to relent in developing themselves for the improvement of the education sector.

POLITICS NOT A SHOW OF INDIFFERENCE (PAGE 13, NOV 5, 2010)

THE Member of Parliament for the Akan Constituency in the Volta Region, Mr Joseph Kwadwo Ofori, has said politics is not a show of indifference by only going to the electorate to solicit their votes with monies when election is near.
“The electorate now are wide awake and cannot be lured by money-sharing politicians who fail to give them any development projects,” he stated.
He noted that the ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ was not meant to distribute money to the people but to provide social amenities and infrastructure to improve their lots.
Mr Ofori stated this when he inaugurated three basic school blocks he was supporting with his share of the GETFund in the Kadjebi District.
The three schools are Kadjebi Evangelical Presbyterian Primary, Pampawie Roman Catholic Primary and Asato Roman Catholic Primary schools.
Mr Ofori said he had also rehabilitated the Amanta Community Clinic at Pampawie, the Dodo Amanfrom Health Centre and the Kadjebi District Health Administration block to the tune of GH¢73,000.00.
Apart from these, the MP said, he had sponsored 100 students to the tertiary level, connected electricity to the Mempeasem Clinic and provided laptops and accessories to the National Health Insurance Secretariat at Kadjebi.
Mr Ofori said he had also lobbied Mr Joe Gidisu, the Minister of Roads and Highways, to build a steel bridge over River Asukwakwa to link Dodofie to Dodo Amanfrom, since the two towns get cut off during the rainy season.
Ms Malwine Asamoah, the Headmistress of Kadjebi EP Primary School, expressed her profound gratitude to Mr Ofori for coming to their aid and called for government assistance to rehabilitate the main school block which was now a death trap.
Ms Asamoah said apart from the weak walls and leaking roofs, the school block, which was constructed in 1947, did not have any furniture.

HOHOE ASSEMBLY HOLDS LAST SESSIONAL MEETING (PAGE 13, NOV 5, 2010)

THE Hohoe Municipal Assembly has held its last sessional meeting with a grand durbar to officially inaugurate five pieces of road maintenance equipment donated to the assembly by the National Security.
They also performed a sod-cutting ceremony on the Hohoe Lorry Station, as well as visited some projects undertaken or being undertaken by the assembly.
The durbar, among others, attracted all the 20 paramount chiefs and queens in the municipality, Mr Joseph Amenowode, the Volta Regional Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hohoe South Constituency, and Mr Prince Jacob Hayibor, MP for Hohoe North Constituency.
The four-year term of the present assembly has ended but the assembly elections had to be postponed to December 28 due to certain amendments which had been proposed to the District Assembly Law.
In his sessional address, Mr Victor Hermann Condobrey, Hohoe Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), commended the assembly members for having assisted the assembly achieve an unprecedented feat in the history of the assembly.
Mr Condobrey noted that for almost two years that he had worked with the assembly members, he had succeeded in implementing more projects than ever done by the assembly.
Through them, he said, the assembly had completed 11 places of convenience, school blocks, teachers’ accommodation and markets in various parts of the municipality.
On revenue generation, the MCE said as of the end of September this year, the assembly had been able to collect only GH¢292, 607.00 out of the projected GH¢ 500,080.00.
The assembly had spent GH¢ 221,669.41 out of the projected GH¢ 683,800.00.
According to Mr Condobrey, the assembly has procured 220 street lights which will be distributed throughout the municipality.
On education, under the free textbooks and uniforms promised by the President, Professor Evans John Atta Mills, the MCE said the municipality had received its share and was distributing them accordingly.
On the general standard of education in the municipality, Mr Condobrey said 15 basic schools scored zero per cent in this year’s Basic Education Certificate Exams (BECE) whilst on the other hand, 10 schools, mostly private schools scored 100 per cent.
The MCE in view of this had summoned the various heads of the non-scoring schools to a meeting to find out their challenges.
Mr Joseph Amenowode commended the assembly members for their service over the years and asked those who intended to come back to work hard to retain the places.
Mr Amenowode expressed his displeasure at the spate of lawlessness that was rearing its ugly head in the region such as the attacks on border personnel in certain parts of the region.
He noted that if security personnel offended anybody, it did not warrant a wholesale attack on the entire security personnel and the security facilities.
The regional minister also called for a stop to smuggling of cocoa in the region since it was coca money which propels the development we all desire.
He wondered why the decision of the government to construct 200,000 houses throughout the country should be politicised.
He said if this went on, the region would have 1,400 houses.
Ghanaians should see this as a major breakthrough and should not be blinded by partisan politics.
Mr Prince Jacob Hayibor, MP for Hohoe North said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government under President Mills was progressing steadily .
“Due to the integrity of the NDC government under President Atta Mills, just one trip abroad had brought in a colossal $13 billion for national development,” MP Hayibor said.
He called for unity among members who should be reminded that the NDC party was focused and was pursuing its target to its logical conclusion.

VOLTA REGIONAL HOSPITAL NEEDS MAMMOGRAM (PAGE 11, NOV 2, 2010)

UNILEVER Ghana Foundation has rewarded eight best female graduates of some public tertiary institutions in the country for their exceptional performance in various fields during the 2008/2009 academic year .
They are Hilda Heidi Akati from Koforidua Polytechnic, Jennifer Azuma Aduah, Bolgatanga, Janet Tse, Takoradi, Leticia Gyamfuaa Sarfo, Sunyani, Joana Addae, Kumasi and Christabel Serwah Amporfo, Accra Polytechnic.
The others are Juliet Ankomah and Juliet Aaferemwin Yirerong ,who are best graduating students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and were honoured for their excellent performance in human Biology and Microbiology respectively.
The Chairman of the Foundation, Mr Andrew Evans-Quayson, congratulated the graduates on holding the name of women high.
He said the Foundation had since its inception two years ago, invested GH¢70,000.0 in its women empowerment programme covering 455 females from the country’s universities and polytechnics.
According to Mr Evans-Quayson, besides the excellence awards, the Foundation sponsors girls in public senior high schools from across the country to participate in Science, Maths, Technology and innovation clinics undertaken by the Ghana Education Service (GES).
He said the Foundation also sponsors entrepreneurial skills training for women in small and medium enterprises in semi-urban areas .
Mr Evans-Quayson, said empowering women was a positive step to ensure equal education for both boys and girls, as well as improve access to health for children and mother to curb infant and maternal mortality, stressing that the focus of the award on female excellence was in line with women empowerment programmes.
Mr Evans- Quayson noted that Unilever would award people for excellence and encourage more women to strive for excellence .
He stated that the Foundation had invested GH¢300,000 in the provision of water system and public places of convenience to serve nine communities in the three regions in the north and three communities in the Sene district of the Brong Ahafo Region and seven communities in the Birim North District of the Eastern Region.
Mr Evans-Quayson was of the view that, it would be difficult to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4, which aims at reducing child mortality rate, if women were not empowered to appreciate the essence of health and hygiene and its role in safe maternity.
The graduates, who were presented with certificates, products of the company and undisclosed sum, expressed their appreciation to Unilever for recognising their efforts
The award winners were taken round the factory on a guided tour by the Corporate Relations Manager of Unilever, Ms Bernice Natue, to observe the production processes.

LIONS-KESSBEN MATCH RAINED OFF (BACK PAGE, NOV 1, 2010)

A PHENOMENAL display by Accra Hearts of Oak saw them overpowering archrivals, Kumasi Asante Kotoko, 1-0 in their Glo Premier League top-liner at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi yesterday.
Offensive midfielder, Douglas Nkrumah, sent the Hearts supporters to the raptures with the only goal from a spot-kick on the 65th minute.
The Phobians played at a frenetic pace, controlling every bit of the match and could have run home with a bigger scoreline had they remained focused in front of goal.
Kotoko could not ignite the spark and they got lost tactically, and the more aggressive and tactically disciplined Hearts treated the near-capacity crowd to some copybook football.
And finally when controversial referee, Cecil Fletcher, ended the game, the “auros, auros” chorus of the visitors vibrated through the stadium.
Hearts made their intentions clear from the start when Douglas Nkrumah rounded Aziz Ansah but failed to go past keeper Isaac Amoako. Ansah, who was making a return debut for Kotoko after a stint in Nigeria, was a bundle of nerves and could hardly recover from his runs, gave Hearts a field day on the left side of attack.
Sammy Adjei, very composed on the afternoon, was superb in post, turning away two dangerous shots from Alex Asamoah and Samad Oppong on the 11th and 16th minutes respectively.
As the game wore on, it appeared Kotoko were lost in the middle where Albert Bruce was a total flop.
After Douglas Nkrumah failed to take advantage of a bright opportunity on the 20th minute, petit midfielder, Obed Ansah, prised open the Kotoko defence, heading past Isaac Amoako, but it was ruled offside.
The chances fell to Hearts who were in total command, but again when Nkrumah’s low drive kissed the post on the 24th minute, Obed Ansah only headed away in front of an empty net.
Alex Asamoah was taken out of the game in the first half following an injury and his exit proved a big blow for Kotoko since Louis Agyeman and Samad Oppong faded out as the Hearts back four of Bobie Ansah, Nzemaba, Boampong and Osei Bonsu cleared their lines with ease.
After recess, Kotoko attempted to gather some spirit but had no attacking fuzz as the strikers faded out. It was a matter of course that Hearts found the leader. Wilson Andoh raced onto a pass and sped in from the left.
As he set off with searing pace, he shot into the area and the ball hit the hand of Ofosu Appiah in the area. Nkrumah made no mistake about it to set Kotoko crumbling for the second time in eight days.

NDC MEMBERS MST BET ON MILLS — AFRIYIE ANKRAH (PAGE 12, OCT 29, 2010)

Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, the Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, has urged members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to remain calm, stay united and bet on President John Evans Atta Mills to lead them to a resounding victory in the 2012 general elections.
Addressing party members, assembly members and a cross section of the public at Jasikan and Kadjebi as part of the Ministry’s country-wide monitoring and evaluation tour last Monday, Mr Afriyie Ankrah asked them to bury all their differences and work for the success of the NDC party.
The tour is to find out how the Metropolitan/Municipal/ District Assemblies were utilising resources put at their disposal in furtherance of the decentralisation policy of the government.
He reminded the members that the party leadership had been aware of the way they all worked to get the NDC party into power, adding that “the forces and powers that brought Prof. Mills into power is beyond human understanding”.
The Deputy Minister asked the party faithful not to seize the slightest excuse and run onto the streets under the pretext of staging demonstration, adding that, within 18 months, President Mills had done everything he could to keep the economy on tract.
“ And when you demonstrate, do not expect the government to agree positively to your demands since you could have over-reacted,” he said.
Mr Afriyie Ankrah reminded the members that they should know that the government could not satisfy everybody in just less than two years of winning political power.
He agreed that the 1992 Constitution admitted demonstrations, “but you cannot hold the government to ransom because some few people have been organised to sing a particular song”.
“You should wait patiently for the government to study your grievances in order to come out with an answer which will be in the interest of the nation as a whole,” he cautioned.
On the ex-gratia payment of Assembly Members on completion of their term of office, the Deputy Minister said they should not expect it from the consolidated fund.
This is because Article 171 of the 1992 Constitution clearly spelt out those who can be paid out of the consolidated fund, he pointed out.
At Jasikan, the Deputy Minister ofLands and Forestry and Member of Parliament for Buem Constituency, Mr Ford Henry Kamel noted that the 2012 elections were going to be the turning point in the history of the country.
This is because the party that would win the elections would be sure to rule the country for a very long time, Mr Kamel said.
According to him by then, the country would be on the threshold of entering the middle income group with oil being produced thus raising the per capita earnings of the people in the country.
Because of this, there will be considerable affluence and the government that is in power will be able to satisfy most of the needs of the people so there will be no need to change it.
The MP for Buem therefore called for calm and unity in the camp of the NDC to be able to win those “critical elections” and be sure of a long hold on the governance of the country.
Earlier, Mr Afriyie Ankrah had taken time off his schedule and toured some of the completed and on-going projects in the two districts and commended the District Chief Executives for their efforts.
Mr Afriyie Ankrah noted that he had realised that the biggest challenge facing them were their roads to which they invest the greater part of their resources.

LIONS LOSE AT HOME (BACK PAGE, OCT 25, 2010)

Kessben FC yesterday maintained their lead after handing BA Stars a 3-1 defeat at the Sekondi Stadium amidst rowdy scenes by fans in the stands.
Kessben’s goals were scored by James Boadu in the sixth and 65th minutes and a contentious penalty well executed by Hans Kwofie in the 46th minute.
BA Stars piled pressure on the homesters after the opener and scored their goal on the 27th minute through Daniel Larbi-Coomson.
A 75th minute BA Stars goal disallowed by referee E.R. Biney caused pandemonium in the stands, requiring the intervention of the police to bring things under control.

GOLOKUATI CELBRATES DODOLEGLIMEZA (SHOWBIZ, PAGE 3, OCT 21, 2010)

By Emmanuel Modey

THE annual Lukusi festival dubbed Dodoleglimeza by the Chiefs and people of Ve Traditional Area in the Hohoe Municipality of the Volta Region was last weekend celebrated with pomp and pageantry at Golokuati.
Originally linked with the escape from the brutalities of King Agorkoli at Nortsie about three centuries ago, the festival has gradually taken on a traditional tone.
The week-long celebration under the theme Education: Key to Youth Employment for Accelerated Rural Development attracted eminent traditional and opinion leaders from all walks of life including Members of Parliament, District Chief Executives, Chinese investors and tourists.
It was a memorable afternoon as crowds gathered at the Roman Catholic Junior High School park where the grand durbar which climaxed the celebrations was held.
In his welcome address, Togbe Delume VII, Paramount Chief of Ve Traditional Area called for the conversion of the Ve Golokuati ICCES centre into a technical institution to train the youth in employable skills.
Togbe Delume VII also used the occasion to appeal to citizens and friends who have the clout to come to their assistance and contribute towards the development of the area which abounds with various natural resources to promote employment avenues for the youth.
Speaking at the durbar, Mr Joseph Amenowode, Volta Regional Minister and Member of Parliament for Hohoe -South Constituency who was the guest of honour said the theme was very relevant since education was the key to the success of the youth.
Mr Amenowode said for that matter, the government was transforming the local Ve Community Senior High School to a reputable standard to enable the school admit as many of the youth who are desirous of improving themselves.
In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Joseph Gidisu, Minister of Roads and Highways underscored the importance of good roads to the socio-economic development of the country and said the ministry was re-shaping about 50 kilometres of roads in and around Ve Traditional Area.
Mr Victor Herman Condobery, Hohoe Municipal Chief Executive urged the youth to take education very seriously since it was the only tool that will empower them for the future.
Other activities which marked the celebration were bicycle race, football gala and a state dance at which Miss Patricia Donkor, a 21 year-old student was crowned Miss Lukusi 2010. For her prize, she took home a cooker, gas cylinder and a set of cooking utensils.

TORRENTIAL RAINS COLLAPSE BRIDGE, CUT OFF BODADA (PAGE 46, OCT 20, 2010)

Recent torrential rains have washed away a bridge at Bodada, a farming community and the Paramount seat of the Buem Traditional Area, which links that part of the Jasikan District to the district capital in the Volta Region.
In view of this, commuters between Bodada and Jasikan have to make a detour of about 48 kilometres through Hohoe instead of the 17 kilometres between the district capital and traditional capital.
Some of the communities which have been cut off from the district capital are Bodada, Teteman, Baika and part of Bowiri which constitute the largest cocoa growing area in the Volta Region.
A sizeable quantity of cocoa produced in the area has been lockedup and farmers may be compelled to travel to Hohoe to market their produce.
The Member of Parliament for the Buem Constituency, Mr Henry Ford Kamel, told the Daily Graphic at Jasikan that the Bodada- Tetema –Baika road was “in its worst state and an embarrassment to the people”.
Mr Kamel, who is also the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, said the situation was worrying and that the affected communities and commuters were not happy with the state of the road.
He has, therefore, appealed to the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to quickly come to the aid of the people under its road reconstruction programme and expressed the fear that farmers in the affected communities would take advantage of the situation to smuggle their produce across the borders.
The Volta Regional Principal Monitoring Officer of the Produce Buying Company (PBC), Mr Prosper Zegbla, asked the farmers not to smuggle their produce across the borders but to sell to their usual buying agents. He gave the assurance that the PBC would evacuate the produce to Hohoe.
For his part, Barima Bonsi II, the Jasikan District Chief Executive, said he would soon visit the area to assess the extent of damage.
He also appealed to the COCOBOD to respond quickly and install a bailey bridge to facilitate the movement of people, goods and services.
He further called on the cocoa farmers to continue sending their produce to the nearest buying centres and leave the problem of evacuation to the COCOBOD.
A Cocoa Purchasing Agent based at Bodada, Mr Alex Adom, said the people were not happy with the situation since it cost them several times more to travel on the safer routes.
Apart from that, Mr Adom said, they spent more time on the route than necessary.
He called for something to be done immediately since it was an important road in the district.

SAND WINNING THREATENS POWER SUPPLY TO PARTS OF VOLTA (PAGE 46, OCT 14, 2010)

The Volta Regional capital, Ho and the northern part of the region risk being thrown into total black out with the disruption of economic activities if the indiscriminate sand winning activities close to electricity pylons between Sokode and Bame in the Ho Municipality are not checked immediately.
The Volta Regional Director of the ECG, Mr William Hutton-Mensah, expressed this worry when he conducted a team of journalists round to see the menace caused by the activities of the illegal sand winners. During the tour reporters saw that deep pits had been dug very close to the pylons by the sand winners.
Mr Hutton –Mensah noted that sand winning within a radius of 50 square feet radius to the pylons was very dangerous since it could facilitate the collapse of the pylons.
“Should the pylons collapse, it would lead to the disruption of almost all economic activities, including the supply of potable water to Ho and the northern part of the region for some months, he said”.
According to Mr Hutton-Mensah, sand winning had become an economic activity in the area which was being carried out with the collaboration of the land owners who often granted permits to the contractors in the community to win sand.
He, therefore, called on the general public to alert the ECG of any sand winning activities close to the pylons because if such illegal activities were not checked, they would go a long way to disrupt economic activities in the area.
The Volta Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Mr David Ampah Bennin, warned that it was illegal for chiefs and landowners to grant permits to sand winning contractors without considering the dangers such activities could pose to the pylons.
He gave a promise that the police would make their presence felt in the area if the sand winning activities continued.
He stressed that sand winning contractors needed to obtain licences from the Ho Municipal Assembly to operate so that their activities could be monitored.
He expressed concern about the trend which he attributed to the failure of the landowners to collaborate with the Ho Municipal Assembly before allocating land for winning of sand.
The regional police commander stressed that all illegal contractors who did not have permits would be arrested.
A technician of GRIDCo, Mr Johnson Ilupeju, said most of the sand winning activities took place at odd hours and those who engaged in them were well-armed.
He said “controlling them is very difficult because they work at night and in the early hours of the day”.
As part of measures to control the menace, the Volta Regional branch of the Electricity Company of Ghana, (ECG) has mounted an intensive campaign to check the massive winning of sand under their pylons between Sokode and Bame in the Ho Municipality of the Volta Region.
The family head of the land on which the pylons were erected (name withheld) is assisting the police in their investigations.

POOR RAINFALL UNDERMINES AGRIC PROGRAMME (SPREAD, OCT 11, 2010)

BENEFICIARIES of the Youth-In-Agriculture module of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) have been hit by crop failure as a result of poor rainfall during the major season in the Akatsi South and North districts of the Volta Region.
The 350 young farmers under the module, who were supported by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and their respective district assemblies with GH¢42,000.00, have been grieving as they could not harvest enough to pay back the financial assistance extended to them.
While the farmers in South Tongu cultivated 200 acres of maize, those in North Tongu and Akatsi planted 83 acres and 96 acres of rice respectively.
A visit to some of the maize and rice farms in the South and North Tongu districts during which the Daily Graphic interacted with some of the farmers revealed a sorrowful sight.
Apart from the Youth-in-Agriculture farms, there were other individual maize and rice fields such as the agricultural component of the Millennium Challenge Account being managed by MiDA also having been affected by poor rains.
The farmers under this pilot project were given training in good agricultural practices in addition to special interventions to increase their yields.
Some of the affected farms under the Youth-in-Agriculture programme are in Kpotame, Sondo, Hodzadzi, Ahlihakpe, Kpodzadzi, Dabala Junction, Agbakofe, Dekpoa, Hikpo, Dordoekope, Tsavanya and Agbagorme.
Mr Steven Dzorkah, 47, leader of the Young Farmers League at Kpodzadzi in the South Tongu District, said his group began the season in May, 2010, with 16 acres of maize but not even two maxi bags were realised at the end of the season.
According to Mr Seth Adu-Wadie, South Tongu District Agriculture Officer in charge of Extension, the assembly ploughed the land while MoFA gave them the seeds, fertiliser and technical advice.
After the first application of fertiliser, Mr Adu-Wadie said, the rains ceased, leading to the withering of the crops.
Mr Gabriel Amezah, one of the rice farmers who has been cultivating rice for the past four years at Dabala Junction in the South Tongu District, said the season had left them in despair.
According to Mr Ignatius Klu Wetsu, MoFA Extension Officer in charge of Dabala Junction Area, the failed rice has dampened the spirit of the farmers who were trying to operate under one umbrella to be able to solicit for credit.
In the North Tongu District, when the youth realised that the maize was failing, they quickly introduced Chili pepper which they are harvesting now, said Mr Agbo Halloway of the South Tongu District Assembly. Mr Halloway said through this they hoped to recoup some of their losses.
The Volta Regional Director of MoFA, Mr John R. Tsrakasu, bemoaned the losses of the farmers involved in the programme, which was to open up the area and offer jobs for the youth.
To offset the cost, Mr Tsrakasu said MoFA had acquired water pumping machines which would be given to the farmers on credit basis.
The Regional Director appealed for support for the Chili project, which has been found to be doing well in the area. To make the youth able to pay back what has been invested in them, he called on the government and various district assemblies to re-invest in them during the next farming season.

WEAVER, DRIVER JAILED 8 YEARS FOR THEFT (PAGE 61, OCT 11, 2010)

A Ho Circuit Court, presided over by Mr Ernest Yao Obimpe has sentenced Atsu Gafa, 30, a weaver and Richard Agbodoe, 32, a driver, to four years imprisonment in hard labour each for breaking into a store and stealing a quantity of Kente cloth and GH¢ 700.00 cash at Kpetoe in the Volta Region.
One other suspect, Amidu Musa, was acquitted and discharged by the court whilst the fourth suspect, Anani, alias Anas is at large.
Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Sampson Agboado said Mr Israel Kporku, the owner of the store and the complainant, together with the accused persons were all from Kpetoe.
Chief Inspector Agboado said on February 28, last year at about 7.30 a.m., Mr Kporku realised that his store had been broken into and 21 male and eight female Kente cloths as well as GH¢ 700.00 cash, all totalling GH¢ 9,900.00 had been stolen the previous night.
He said police investigations led to the arrest of the four persons and they were charged with unlawful entry and stealing and subsequently arraigned.
Although, they pleaded not guilty to the charges, the court found Gafa and Agbodoe guilty and sentenced them accordingly.
Mr Obimpe ordered the suspects to return the stolen items and cash after serving their sentences.

FOUR JAILED FOR RAIDING ROYAL HOUSE (PAGE 51, OCT 7, 2010)

FOUR elders of the Katanga Division of the Krachi Traditional Area have been jailed six months each with hard labour for breaking into the royal house and taking away some stool regalia.
The four, including a woman, were convicted by the Hohoe Circuit Court on four counts of conspiracy to commit crime, unlawful damage, unlawful entry and stealing.
They are Opanyin Kwadwo Oduni, 76, a farmer; Opanyin Osafo, 64, a driver; Benjamin Owusu, alias Kwaku Kuru, 74, a farmer, and Beatrice Boame, 56, a trader.
According to the prosecutor, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Ben Dadzie of Hohoe, Opanyin Yaw Donkor, a farmer, who is the complainant and the four convicts are all elders to Nana Diawuo Bediako II, the chief of Katanga.
According to ASP Dadzie, about 3.15 p.m. on December 7, 2007, the convicts entered the stool room and came out holding the stool sword, a black stool and other royal regalia.
The prosecutor said when Opanyin Donkor confronted them, the convicts ignored him and left with the items.
He said Opanyin Donkor reported the matter to the stool father, who later detected that the door to the stool room had been forced open.
Upon further search, the prosecutor said the following items were found missing: the black stool, two other stools, a walking stick, a sword and some traditional stones.
When the matter was reported to Nana Bediako, he referred it to the police at Katanga.
Sentencing the convicts, the presiding judge, Justice Edward Bosompim-Apenkwa, said he was being lenient because he took into consideration their ages and status, adding, however, that their behaviour was not the proper way to register their disapproval of the chief.
He sentenced them to six months each on every count to run concurrently. He also asked them to return the regalia to the chief.

INVEST IN COCOA INDUSTRY, YOUTH TOLD (PAGE 3, OCT 7, 2010)

THE Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Mr Anthony Fofie, has urged the youth to consider the numerous opportunities in the cocoa industry and invest their resources in the sector to improve their livelihoods.
Mr Fofie said with the producer price of cocoa now at GH¢200.00, the youth would have much to gain if they invested in cocoa farming.
Addressing the 2010 Buem Congress at Teteman in the Jasikan District of the Volta Region last Saturday, he said COCOBOD was ready to assist the youth with all the resources at its disposal.
The Buem Congress, which is held on a rotational basis among the 23 communities in the Jasikan Traditional Area, was on the theme; “Revamping the cocoa industry in Buem — An Agenda for the Youth”.
To encourage the youth to venture into cocoa farming, the chief executive said seed gardens would be established at vantage points to sell hybrid seeds and seedlings to the youth at subsidised rates .
Mr Fofie said that Buem was once a vibrant cocoa producing area but due to bush fires and degradation of the soil, farmers had moved to other regions, leaving their lands behind.
On smuggling, he said it was a stumbling block in the country’s quest to attain the one million metric tonnes per annum target.
He said smuggling cocoa out made the country to lose a significant amount of foreign exchange, while the reverse of that compromised the premium quality of cocoa beans.
The chief executive, therefore, called for a collaborative effort to curb the menace, since several interventions put forward by the government and COCOBOD had failed.
Mr Barima Bonsi II, the Jasikan District Chief Executive, expressed satisfaction at the peaceful resolution of the long-standing chieftaincy dispute that hindered development in Buem.
He urged the youth to disabuse their minds of the perception that farming was the work of the uneducated, since both the educated and the uneducated could equally reap the benefits associated with farming.
Mr Isaka Buraima, the Chairman of the Coalition of Buem Congress, said the theme was premised on the fact that Buem had long lost its pride of place as a renowned cocoa-growing area, leading to poverty.

PEOPLE OF LIATE-WOTE OBSERVE TSIKEKE FESTIVAL (PAGE 19, OCT 5, 2010)

THE chiefs and people of Liati-Wote in the Hohoe Municipality, have held a durbar to celebrate their annual Afadjato/Tagbo Tsikeke Festival at Wote at the weekend.
The climax of the week-long festival, which had as its theme; “Promoting Community Development and Well-being through Eco-tourism”, was the inauguration of a GH¢12, 000.00 tourist reception centre built by the people.
The centre is meant to receive guests who want to climb the Afadjato, the highest mountain in the country.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Joseph Amenowode, the Volta Regional Minister and Member of Parliament for Hohoe South, said the region was blessed with several historical and tourist sites, which should be capitalised to generate revenue for development.
Mr Amenowode, who is a citizen of the area, said the region was blessed with many tourist attractions and asked the people to put up hospitality centres to provide accommodation and catering services to promote the development of the industry.
The minister was accompanied by seven other ministers, including Mr Yieleh Chireh, Minister of Local Government and his deputy Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, as well as the various regional co-ordinating directors.
In a speech read on her behalf, Ms Zita Okaikoe, Minister of Tourism, called on Ghanaians to show interest in domestic tourism.
On the conditions of the poor road network in the area, she said the ministry was trying to get the Ministry of Finance to provide funds for such roads so that they could force the Ministry of Roads and Highway to work on them.
That, she said, was on the realisation that tourism had become a major foreign exchange earner to the country.
In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Joseph Gidisu, Minister of Roads and Highways, said the ministry was gradually working to improve roads in the area.
Earlier in a welcoming address, Togbe Kodadza V, Chief of Liati Wote, commended the government for the provision of infrastructural facilities and social amenities in the area and made an appeal that the road network in the area be given a facelift.

GOVERNANCE TRAINING WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN ENDS (PAGE 13, OCT 2, 2010)

A FIVE-DAY governance training workshop on women participation in governmental processes has ended at Kpetoe in the Adaklu-Anyigbe District of the Volta Region.
The workshop which attracted 28 participants formed part of the three year governance project in 20 districts being undertaken by Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF) with support from European Union.
It was dubbed “we know politics: good governance through increasing women’s participation in Ghana’s processes”. The workshop will also lead to the formation of a Coalition of Women in Governance (COWIG).
Closing the ceremony, Mr Michael Kobla Adzaho, Adaklu-Anyigbe District Chief Executive (DCE) hoped that the workshop would put women in the right perspective to participate in the democratic process.
Mr Adzaho expressed the hope that the COWIG so formed would continue to train women to attain leadership position in the district assemblies and parliament.
“ I am sure the workshop will equip you with the requisite knowledge and skill and sharpen you in politics,” he noted.
Topics treated included gender, women participation and representative in politics, governance, local government system, power and governance and team-building.

CHANGING FORTUNES OF HOHOE RICE FARMERS (PAGE 27, OCT 2, 2010)

“Harvesting, threshing and winnowing of paddy rice by small scale rice farmers in the Hohoe Municipality has become more laborious and time consuming, leading to massive post-harvest losses, which reduces our incomes as well. Because of the obsolete way it is harvested and threshed before reaching the market, the amount lost in the process is phenomenal,” says Mr George Agbemavor, a rice farmer based at Gbi Wegbe in the Hohoe Municipality.
Mr Agbemavor, who cultivated 50 acres of rice last year, observed that labour was what took most of the resources and time of rice farmers.
“ I will be happy if the government could bring in more farm equipment to reduce the tedium and expense in using manual labour in order to attract the youth into agriculture, ” Agbemavor said.
He said the bumper harvest recorded by rice farmers had been eroded by the laborious harvesting and threshing processes they had to undertake to bring their produce to the market.
The government of Ghana spends a lot of money on the importation of rice for local consumption. This is against the background that the country has the capacity and resources to be self-reliant in rice production.
Past and present governments have realised this all along and have been taking steps to ameliorate the situation but to no avail. An example of the steps is the establishment of irrigation projects for large scale rice production at such places as Dawhenya, Afife, Kpong and Asutsuare.
But these projects, which were undertaken under various governments, could not survive the demise of the regimes that established them.
During the rice farming season in July, Madam Adzo Kemetse, a rice farmer based at Santrokofi-Benua, near Hohoe, and her family migrated from their home to communities where they could find swampy fields on lease for rice cultivation.
Madam Kemetse said even though the peasant farmer could produce enough rice, most Ghanaians preferred buying the imported one.
“Go to a rice field and you will find trees and other objects which will make it very difficult to use tractor services. As such, manual labour is employed. So a job which can be done in a few hours takes days to complete, ” she lamented.
And because sometimes the labour is not available or very difficult to obtain, there are problems that affect the crops during harvesting.
Harvesting, threshing and winnowing are the most problematic because if they are not done at a specific time, there is the likelihood one could experience post-harvest losses, she said.
For this reason, she said, rice farmers travelled as far as the northern part of the region to look for labour. The labour comes with a problem. The men come with their wives and children and the farmers have to look for accommodation for them, feed them three times a day and provide them with medical care when they get sick.
“After the harvesting, the farmer looks for another set of labourers to come and pick the harvested rice from the ground and prepare it for threshing. This is a critical part of the process because if not picked quickly, they might germinate because the ground is wet and marshy, ” she said.
This accounts for the high cost of labour and drudgery leading to post-harvest losses of about 30 per cent annually.
It was no wonder that the farmers were happy when the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with FINATRADE, procured a combined harvester, a planter and a seeder worth $ 40,000 for them.
Being a big boost, this will really assist the rice farmers a lot in their farming activities.
With the seeder, the rice seeds will be made to germinate before being transferred to the planter which plants in lines. When the plants are ready for harvesting, the combined harvester comes in handy to harvest and bag the produce.
This gesture was facilitated last year by ADCI/VOCA, which organised the farmers in the Hohoe Municipality into groups on a pilot basis, gave them training in good agricultural practices and supported them to increase their yield with credit facilities from a local rural bank and supplied them with agricultural inputs.
The organisation did not only support the farmers but also introduced them to new varieties of rice, which are comparable to what is imported and sold on the market.
Apart from this, FINATRADE, a Ghanaian trading firm, assured the farmers of ready market for their produce.
According to the firm, they were ready to buy any quantity of rice the farmers could produce provided the quality was good and met the requirement of the Ghanaian consumer.
Mr Ben Dadzie, a senior agronomist and a consultant with ACDI/VOCA, says the biggest problem facing rice production in the country is getting the best varieties such as the Togo Marshal and Viwonor and improving on efficiency in the cultivation process.
The Togo Marshal is white rice and popular on the market whilst Viwonor is red.
“If these two can be tackled, Ghana will have no problems, ” he said.
As a result of the initiative, “84 rice farmers, comprising 75 out-growers and nine nucleus farmers with farm sizes ranging from two to 50 acres were mobilised to cultivate 438 acres of low land rice in the Hohoe Municipality last year, ” he said.
Out of a target of 2,000 tonnes of rice earmarked for the season, he said, an initial total of 1,604 tonnes of paddy rice harvested had been transported to the Praire Volta Ltd at Aveyime for milling and onward delivery to FINATRADE.
“This season, in July, the project has increased the number of farmers and the area under cultivation to 2,500 acres in support of the government’s policy of increasing local rice production and reducing rice importation”, Mr Dadzie said.
“I have always been advising these farmers to see agriculture as a big venture and am happy that the region has witnessed a boost in rice production, ” said Bessa Akpalu, an official of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA).
Mr Akpalu said very soon the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) would facilitate the cultivation of rice in the municipality by removing the stumps to enable the farmers to fulfil their promise of feeding half of the nation with rice.
Efo Kumah Ameyibor, Operation Manager of Green Shield Agro-Chemicals, expressed optimism that the troubles faced by these farmers would one day be over.
He wondered whether the prices of the local varieties would be the same as the imported rice even if the municipality could put the same varieties of rice on the market. He was so concerned because the mode of producing the local rice was not efficient.
He said the only way forward after the introduction of the right varieties was to remove all the stumps in the rice fields to ensure that those tractors, planters and harvesters could be used to facilitate production.
With the provision of the seeder, combine harvester and other equipment, if the stumps are removed and the right varieties of rice are provided Ghana can achieve efficiency in production, attract competitive prices, and then talk of reducing the importation of rice.

GOVT WON'T ABANDON COCOA SECTOR (1C, OCT 2, 2010)

President John Evans Atta Mills has assured cocoa farmers that the government will not abandon the cocoa sector because of the discovery of oil in the country.
“We have learnt from the mistakes of our sister countries that have discovered oil and will never repeat those mistakes in our dear country,” Prof Atta Mills said.
The President said that in a speech read on his behalf by Alhaji Collins Dauda, Minister of Lands and Forestry at the Cocoa Producers Alliance (COPAL) Cocoa Day celebration at Hohoe in the Volta Region yesterday.
The day brought together cocoa farmers from all over the country. An exhibition was mounted to showcase the various products that could be obtained from the cocoa plant, including cocoa butter, chocolates, beverages, cocoa pomade, brandy and soap.
President Mills said cocoa was so dear to his heart that he would ensure that the sector continued to play a critical role in the ‘Better Ghana’ agenda set by his administration.
The President said that the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had implemented various measures and policies to ensure that the Better Ghana Agenda was reflected in the cocoa sector.
Those measures and policies, Prof. Mills said, were geared towards achieving the target of producing one million tonnes of cocoa annually.
Some of the measures and policies, he said, were the re-introduction of cocoa extension services, the rehabilitation of the old unproductive farms, hi-tech cocoa seeds and mass spraying programmes.
The President said research had shown that the weakest link between the country’s drive to achieve the one million-tonne target was the lack of cocoa extension services.
He commended the cocoa farmers and informed them that the government had listened to their cries and had as such decided to introduce a pension scheme for them.
“The technocrats are currently working on the modalities to ensure an effective, efficient and sustainable scheme,” he said.
He added that the government was fine-tuning the farmers housing scheme to expand it to cover more farmers.
The President assured the management of COCOBOD that the government would continue to support them in their effort to raise the per capita consumption of cocoa in the country.
“We should eat what we grow and grow what we eat” and for that reason, he called on Ghanaians to make conscious effort to substitute tea breaks with cocoa breaks.
Mr Anthony Fofie, the Chief Executive of COCOBOD, noted that the celebration of the Cocoa Day in Hohoe, and for that matter the Volta Region, was to re-awaken the people in the region to redouble up their efforts at cocoa production.
Mr Fofie said the region, which used to produce an average of 20,000 tonnes per annum in the 1970s, was currently producing an average of 1,000 tonnes.
“We need to reverse this trend since the region has the potential to bounce back to assume its rightly position as a major cocoa-producing region,” the Chief Executive said.
He said in a bid to rejuvenate the cocoa production in the region, COCOBOD had established a seed garden at Saviefe in the Ho Municipality to provide interested farmers with improved planting materials.
On cocoa consumption, Mr Fofie reiterated that the per capita consumption was still low, about half a kilogramme per head.
COCOBOD, he said, had targeted to attain at least a kilo per head in the medium term.
“To this end, COCOBOD will soon embark on a massive campaign programme, which includes conference for researchers to share ideas on the health benefits of cocoa consumption and the inauguration of cocoa drink dispensing joints,” he said.
He said that the surest way of ensuring the sustainable local consumption was to have children inculcate the habit as they would not only develop the taste for cocoa products but also stay healthier to contribute their quota toward the Better Ghana agenda.
He, therefore, appealed to the government to consider incorporating cocoa consumption into the School Feeding Programme.

CAR-JACKERS TO DIE BY HANGING (MIRROR, PAGE 20, OCT 2, 2010)

From Emmanuel Modey, Ho

A HO High Court, presided over by Justice Kofi Essel-Mensah has sentenced two persons, Benjamin Deble alias Haruna Yakubu and Raymond Agbeve alias Ahiane to death by hanging for murdering a taxi driver at Takuve in the Adaklu-Anyigbe District.
The two, Deble and Agbeve, who pleaded not guilty on three counts of conspiracy, robbery and murder were found guilty by a five-member jury for murdering Shalif Abu, a taxi cab driver.
Presenting the facts of the case, a State Attorney, Mr Kwaku Mensah Akude, said on July 10, 2000, the convicts hired Abu, the murdered driver of an Opel taxi with registration number GW 3464 Q, from the Tetteh Quarshie roundabout in Accra to convey some building materials to Takuve, near Ziope , the hometown of Agbeve.
After dropping the items, Mr Akude said, Deble and Agbeve asked Abu to drive them to Aflao for a business transaction and on the way, they requested the driver to stop for them to attend to call of nature.
He said, as soon as Abu stopped, Agbeve fired a pistol at him but the bullet missed him narrowly, resulting in a fierce struggle.
During the struggle, the State Attorney said, Deble took a hammer lying in the car and hit Abu on the head resulting in his instant death in cold blood.
He said, Agbeve then rushed to Takuve and returned with a pickaxe and a shovel with which they dug a trench in a nearby okro farm and buried the deceased. After their heinous act, the two then pushed the vehicle to the house of Agbeve and left for Aflao.
Unknown to them, Akude said, a school boy had seen them in the act and narrated it to his mother who alerted one, Kofi Attah, the father of Agbeve, who is now at large.
He said, sensing danger, Attah chased his son, Agbeve and Deble to Aflao to come and remove the taxi immediately from the village since the cat was out of the bag. They, therefore, responded and came back in the early hours of the following day at about 3.00am.
But just as they set off, they had a punctured tyre which was mended. Soon after that, another tyre also got burst, compelling Agbeve to travel to Aflao to buy new tyres, the prosecutor said.
This, he said, led to the information leaking to the police and their subsequent arrest and prosecution.

DZODZE CATHOLIC HOSPITAL INSTALS OXYGEN PLANT (PAGE 46, SEPT 29, 2010)

The Saint Anthony’s Catholic Hospital at Dzodze in the Ketu North District of the Volta Region has installed its own oxygen-generating plant. With the facility in place, the hospital can generate its own oxygen needs without going to L’ air Liquide in Tema for its supplies.
To man the plant, two technical staff of the hospital have been trained by the Medico Engineering and Supplies Ltd in Koforidua in the Eastern Region which supplied and installed the plant.
The plant was handed over to the hospital authorities at the weekend.
At the handover ceremony, Mr Mac-Okorwu, the Sales and Marketing Executive of Medico-Engineering said the plant, which cost GH¢84,000.00 was provided with a credit facility.
He said the hospital entered into a contractual agreement with them after they had been briefed on it.
The plant, called, MODULO2 , made in France, will be ready for use anytime oxygen was needed for operations.
The Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr William Gyan-Dwamena, received the plant and expressed the hospital’s satisfaction and its ability to acquire the facility.
Dr Gyan-Dwamena said the plant would save the hospital much time and expense in acquiring oxygen for their operations.

OVERCROWDING , CAUSE OF SKIN DISEASES IN HO PRISION PAGE 42, SEPT 29, 2010)

OVER crowding and poor diet for prisoners in the Ho Central Prisons have been identified as the major cause of skin diseases attacking the inmates.
According to the findings of the five-member committee set up by the Volta Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service and Ghana Prisons Service, 32 out of the 109 remand prisoners had various degrees of skin lesions on their buttocks, groins, backs, legs and abdomen.
The investigation was conducted on the orders of the Ho Circuit Court presided over by Justice Ernest Yao Obimpe.
The judge gave the order when one Amaglo Dela Vidza who appeared before him complained of rashes on his penis and anus.
The five-member committee found out that cells which were meant for 10 and 12 people, contained 53 and 56 inmates who had to be packed “like sardines with bodies touching one another when sleeping at night.”
Some of the remand inmates have been in the prison since 2001 and have appeared before court several times but they have neither been sentenced nor freed.
They also found out that the 60 pesewa feeding allowance per inmate was grossly inadequate to provide them any reasonably balanced diet three times a day to boost their immunity.
To solve the problem, the committee recommended that the courts should dispose of cases before them rapidly and should award fines in lieu of custodial sentences for minor offences like “ stealing of plantain.”
The committee also recommended the fumigation of cells and the isolation of persons with the skin diseases.
“If possible, the prison should be expanded since the population has increased,” the committee recommended.

EP CHURCH GOOD NEWS CHOIR MARKS 15TH MILESTONE (PAGE 46, SEPT 27, 2010)

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana Good News Choir Union, has climaxed its 15th annual rally with a thanksgiving service at Gbi Wegbe in the Hohoe Municipality of the Volta Region.
The week-long rally, organised by the Central Presbytery of the Church, which attracted congregations from Have through Kwamikrom to Nkwanta was on the theme: “Rejoice over One Repentant Sinner”.
Preaching the sermon, Reverend W.R. Sakoe, Moderator of the Central Presbytery Synod, said as God was still searching for lost souls, it behoves leaders at all levels to change their attitude towards wrong doers by assisting them to reform.
Rev. Sakoe reminded the congregation that God wanted us to repent from our sins, since he was prepared to take us back.
“We should pray ceaselessly and obey the commandments of the Lord since God will never shower his favour upon a proud nation”.
He said society needed the contribution of all for it to succeed and that we should all join hands for its development, adding that since God did not cast anybody away from Himself, everybody should see him/herself as beneficial to society.
The Guest Speaker, Mr Prince Jacob Hayibor, Member of Parliament for the Hohoe North Constituency, called on the people to unite and eschew partisanship for progress and development.
“We need humility and modesty in all our endeavours in order to receive the blessing of God, “ Mr Hayibor said.
He called on the people to put up attitudes of righteousness, modesty and utmost commitment to ensure that the country moved along the right path for the achievement of its desired goals.
“You should pray for peace at all levels and also for the leadership of the country, ” Mr Hayibor said.
He said the country belonged to all of us, no matter our political position, so we should seek the progress of Ghana first in all that we did.
Mr Hayibor explained government policies and programmes to the congregation and urged those who had not as yet registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme to do so in order to access quality health care.
Mr Victor Herman Condobery, the Hohoe Municipal Chief Executive, called on the clergy to use the pulpit to preach to the youth to desist from negative attitudes.
He mentioned some of these attitudes as armed robbery, sakawa and ritual murders, which had assumed alarming dimensions.