Two people sustained various degrees of injury last Tuesday when a Toyota Forerunner wagon collided with a BMW saloon car at a point at Adabraka along the Accra-Circle highway. When the Daily Graphic reached the scene at exactly 3:05 p.m, the BMW 5 Series was being towed away. Security personnel who had already been dispatched to the scene managed to maintain sanity and were seen directing traffic to ensure its free movement. According to an eyewitness who gave his name as Philip, he was in a taxi en route to the Cathedral when he saw the BMW with registration number GR 617 L heading towards Accra at top speed. He said he asked the driver of the taxi to stop, having sighted the Toyota Forerunner   with registration number GW 5150 W speeding towards his direction. Philip said the traffic light facing the Cathedral road was not functioning, so the Toyota Forerunner driver crossed over to the other end of the road while the traffic light on the Circle-Accra road had turned green.  He added: “What I realised was that both vehicles had collided in the middle of the road. The Toyota Forerunner somersaulted and in the process hit the traffic light which faced the Odorna road and fell on two pedestrians who were crossing the road to the other end”.    In an interview, the supervisor of the Accident Office at the Central Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU), Chief Inspector Aboagye Daffour, gave the names of the drivers of the accident vehicles as Mr Edmond Thompson and Nana Amoateng.   He indicated that the pedestrians, Isaac Obeng, 21, and Yaw Asare, 42, were rushed to the Ridge Hospital for medical attention and that the two vehicles were badly damaged. Investigations are underway to ascertain the actual cause of the collision.  Appeal Cheif Inspector Daffour appealed to the Ministry of Roads and Highways and the MTTU to help repair the damaged traffic lights to prevent accidents.  

    President John Dramani has strongly made a case for the speedy and timely release of funds for the implementation of projects agreed between the Ghana government and its Japanese development partners. He stated that the periods between project conception and authorisation for work to begin were often far too long and called on the Japanese government and investors to critically take a second look at the situation. President Mahama made the point yesterday when he participated in a special Africa-Japan Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) roundtable discussion at the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The discussions were a follow-up to the June 2013 TICAD V, which brought together African leaders, ministers, heads of international organisations and business leaders to identify critical challenges and redefine the role of Japan in Africa's development.   Mutual Benefit President Mahama said the development engagement between Japan and Africa was crucial in advancing the development objectives of both parties. Explaining, he said while Japan had the technology, Africa had the resources, “so it should be a win-win situation”. Ghana, the President said, was already witnessing progress in its engagement with Japan, as a number of companies from that country were playing major roles in developments within the oil and gas industry. Fixing Africa’s infrastructure  He said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan had already shown a keen interest in fixing some of the pressing infrastructure projects in Africa to enhance its integration process. With trade among African countries currently at 11 per cent, President Mahama said the level of trade  was not the best for the continent. “We have no illusions about our challenges but we are working on them and we are determined that we create an environment that is conducive for trade and investment,” he said. Conflicts in Africa Mr Mahama also touched on conflicts in Africa and said “today we have fewer conflicts in Africa and the interventions we have created are achieving positive results”.     

  The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) is sourcing a loan of $95 million from Brazil to purchase agricultural machinery. This initiative is to help increase food production and beef up Agricultural Mechanisation Service Enterprise Centres (AMSEC)  Services by ensuring that every district has at least one service centre. Message From MoFA The of Engineering Services for MoFA, Mr George Akyena Brantuo said this in his address at the Young Farmers League Co-operative Society’s (YFLCS) advocacy seminar in Accra last Thursday. The seminar was part of attempts to get the government’s attention to establish tractor service schemes for farmer groups. “The money will be used to purchase tractors for effective land preparation; planters for precision planting; boom sprayers and pumps for proper crop maintenance; and combine harvesters for effective harvesting,” he said. YFLCS concerns The president for YFLCS, Mr Jacob Doe Adzikah said that the seminar was aimed at getting the government’s attention through the MoFA to establish tractor service schemes for farmer groups like theirs. He said that the seminar was also to advocate the establishment of AMSEC in the Osu-Doku and Akuapem North Districts where most of their members had their farms. “Most of our farmers cannot cultivate large acreages because of limited access to tractor services. This is affecting their profits,” he added.  The YFLCS, he said had a capacity of 28,000 members in 28 districts. YFLCS Research Findings A research conducted by a consultant on behalf of YFLCS reported among others that the member farmers were only able to cultivate one acre due to lack of tractor and other machinery support services. The research also showed that most young prospective large scale farmers were abandoning their farms for similar reasons which makes farming an unattractive venture. Recommendations The research report recommended that considering the fact that their number was large, the government through the district assemblies should facilitate the development of tractor service schemes for them.  

  Three employees of Aviance Ghana Limited have been captured on video breaking into the baggage of travellers at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in Accra and stealing iPads and mobile phones from them. The closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage captured baggage offloading activities in the bulk holding compartment of Emirates Flight EK787 that arrived at the KIA from Dubai on October, 2013. Names of suspects  According to the police, the suspects, whose names were given as Emmanuel Sowah, 35; Abraham Armah, 33, and John Paul Dzanku, 36, conspired with Abraham Tetteh Pinto, a member of staff of Glory Height Profile Consult, to carry out the operation. The first three have been working with Aviance Ghana since 2009.  The CCTV footage showed the three forcibly opening the baggage of some passengers of the Emirates flight and stealing gadgets, including iPads and mobile phones. While Pinto kept watch to ensure that they were not caught, the three Aviance Ghana workers hid the stolen items in their working gear before leaving the bulk holding compartment. Emirates Invites Aviance Security  The footage was seen 10 days after the incident when Emirates Airlines invited the management of the Aviance Security Department of the Ghana Airport Company Limited to watch it. The management of the Airport Security, led by the Aviation Security Operations Manager, Mr Kennedy Affum Agyapong, was said to have been overwhelmed by what it saw. One iPad retrieved  The Public Relations Officer of the CID, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mr Joseph B. Darkwa, told the Daily Graphic that Aviation Security officers later retrieved one iPad from suspect Dzanku upon a search. He said all the four suspects deserted their posts and had since gone into hiding.  They have been charged with stealing and a warrant of arrest was obtained from the courts on January 14. The four have been itemised on the police wanted list in the Police Gazette. Pictures of the four suspects have been posted at vantage points at the KIA and on the notice boards of a number of police stations throughout the country. It is believed, he said, that the suspects could be hiding in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Somanya or in the Volta Region. “Anybody with information on them should contact the nearest police station or the Director of the Commercial Crime Unit at the CID Headquarters in Accra,” the police notice stated. writers email: [email protected]  

  Power supply shortfalls from the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) have prompted the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to embark on emergency power management exercise for the past three weeks. With no hope of stabilisation of  supplies in sight, the exercise is likely to occur anytime GRIDCo prompts the ECG to cut down on power supply to some of its consumers.  According to the Public Relations Officer of the ECG, Mr William Boateng, the emergency load management had become necessary as the power generators experienced shortages in power supplies from the Bui Generating Plant, as well as the Tema and the Aboadze Thermal plants. The exercise has so far led to the offloading of between 70 and 200 megawatts of power from the national grid to consumers between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on different occasions. Power management Following issues such as shortage in crude oil, the plants are said to have developed faults and the companies need to perform maintenance works to prevent a complete breakdown. Those works, Mr Boateng said, were part of ongoing exercises aimed at protecting transformers from breaking down as a result of excessive load, adding, “These are challenges in the system which are being worked at.” He gave instances when power outages had been experienced to include Monday, January 20 and Wednesday, January 22, 2014 when 70 and 100 megawatts of power respectively were taken off from the national grid. The ECG, according to Mr Boateng, tried as much as possible to ensure that it alerted its clients before their power was taken off. He said although tariffs were adjusted at the beginning of the year, the company was still not achieveing full cost recovery, as people were paying far less than what they consumed. He said with over three million primary customers and an uncountable number of secondary users, the ECG would be able to perform better if it recovered the actual cost of what was consumed by customers. He said it was the aim of the company to achieve a 100-per cent installation of prepaid meters in all urban centres where it operated, saying presently the prepaid meters covered only 30 per cent of its operating areas. He said with a mission of providing quality, reliable and safe electricity services to support the economic growth and development of the country, the ECG, which provides power for six regions, apart from the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West, was working out a better plan with GRIDCo to ensure that customers were given enough notice before any power management was undertaken. Mr Boateng’s assertion on cost recovery confirms a recent statement by President John Mahama at the launch of Ghana’s first solar plant at Punga in the Upper East Region that one of the major problems that had created stress for the energy companies was the fact that users of energy were paying less than the energy production cost. The President was quoted as saying, “If we want reliable power, then, as a people, we must be prepared to pay for it. Our power tariffs have remained at a certain level for the past several years and the problem that we face is that at the time those tariffs were set, we were using gas to generate the power. Gas is much cheaper than light crude oil.”  Cost Recovery Mr Boateng said so far the company, as a result of the prepaid meters that were introduced, especially with the installation of such meters in the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), had been able to constantly recover about 30 per cent of the power that it supplied and that, he said, was also helping in reducing the government’s indebtedness to the company. Currently, he said, the ECG was working at undertaking a final mop-up exercise to ensure that people who did not get their old meters replaced had them replaced with the prepaid meters.  Also, he said by the middle of this year it was going to embark on a project that would see the whole of Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region, put on prepayment. “The Kumasi prepayment programme,” he said, would also help the company recover most of its cost. According to Mr Boateng, the ECG was working at ensuring that GRIDCo and the VRA also put out information to the public on what role they were playing to ensure that the public appreciated the efforts that they were all making to provide power at all times. Energy needs With a population of over 25 million people, Ghana has an energy supply need of around 2,200 megawatts (MW) plus reserves of about 200MW and, according to the PRO, the country produced around that same figure, saying that “this makes it difficult to sustain constant power supply when there is a breakdown in any of the plants”. Energy supply in Ghana The Akosombo Hydroelectric Power Plant supplies about 1,020MW of energy, followed by the Bui Dam, which produces 400MW; then the Aboadze Thermal Power Plant,  360MW and the Takoradi Thermal Power Plant 330MW.   Kpong produces 160MW, while the country’s first solar plant at Punga in the Upper East Region produces 2MW of power onto the national grid, giving the country a total of 2,272MW of combined electricity supply.  Thermal power plants to produce 500MW have been installed and inaugurated in Tema at various times. Some of them are public projects, but most of the capacity is private (Sunon Asogli — 200 MW) or semi-private (CENIT — 126 MW). Several thermal generation projects totalling over 1,000MW are currently at various stages of development by both public and private operators. These projects include Kpone (Alstom), Sunon Asogli Expansion, Takoradi 2 combined-cycle expansion, CENIT/TT1PP expansion and Takoradi 3 expansion. Writer's email: [email protected]  

  The SEWA Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), is to register about 1,000 under-privileged children in the Eastern Region under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). The Chief Executive Officer of the NGO, Mr Jones Owusu Yeboah, said that at the launch of the foundation at the Assemblies of God Church in Koforidua. He said the initiative formed part of a nationwide drive to put 10,000 children on the National Health Insurance Scheme. Mr Yeboah said the initiative was part of SEWA’s greater agenda to fight the booming child sex trade, which is the result of child trafficking, poverty and irresponsible parenthood. He said a survey by SEWA showed that the growing number of children engaged in commercial sex trade was worrying, adding that most of the girls slept with an average of 12 men in a week and charged from GH¢2 to GH¢5 per man. Mr Yeboah commended the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) for partnering the organisation to achieve its aim of giving life to underprivileged children. He disclosed that in the Eastern Region, children from Koforidua, Somanya, Kwahu and Akim Oda would benefit from the scheme. Mr Yeboah said it was the goal of the foundation to help reduce child prostitution and build a multipurpose home for street and trafficked children, as well as delinquents who needed reformation and reintegration. He said the foundation, with its partners, including the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, would collaborate to work hard to reduce the canker. Mr Yeboah commended sponsors of the foundation, First Allied Savings and Loan and Nii Cudjoe and Associates Company Limited, for their support for activities of the foundation. Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Daniel Yaro, Officer in charge of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, said child trafficking had become one major challenge for the nation, and, therefore, urged all to report people suspected to be involved in it. GNA  

  A 27-year-old man who allegedly stabbed an ex-police officer at her Dansoman-Sahara residence in Accra has been arrested. The suspect, Ebenezer Agoah, is said to have stabbed the victim, Sarah Allotey, 64, his aunt, several times after she had refused to give him money he had asked for. According to the Dansoman Divisional Crime Officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mr Godfred Ferdinand Amengor, Agoah locked himself and the victim up in the living room. Agoah, who became furious because of the victim’s failure to give him the money, was said to have pulled out a kitchen knife he had hidden in his pair of trousers and stabbed her in the neck and the stomach several times. Shout for help The Crime Officer said Madam Allotey shouted for help, which drew some neighbours to the house, only for them to discover that the entrance to the living room had been locked. The door was forced open by policemen from the Dansoman Police Station who had rushed to the house on receiving a phone call from one of the neighbours.  According to Mr Amengor, Madam Allotey was found lying on the floor in a pool of blood, while Agoah stood a few metres away holding the knife he had used for the assault. He said the police gave a warning shot and asked the suspect to drop the knife but he refused.  “So we shot at his leg after he had attempted to stab Madam Allotey again on the floor,” he said. Mr Amengo said the victim and the suspect were rushed to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the Police Hospital, respectively, for medical attention. Madam Allotey has since been discharged, while Agoah is still on admission at the Police Hospital. The Crime Officer said investigations had revealed that Agoah had, before the incident, spent some time at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.