The Vice-President of Imani Ghana, Mr Kofi Bentil, has called for an overhaul of Ghana’s public sector. He said the public sector was choked with more than 550,000 workers whose contribution to productivity was nothing to write home about. Addressing the third Entrepreneurship Clinic for students in Kumasi, Mr Bentil said 100,000 workers could very much do the work of the 550,000 workers.   Entrepreneurship clinic The clinic was organised by the Centre for Business Development (CBD) of the Kwame

The Ghana Railway Company (GRC) posted an impressive performance in 2013 following improvement on its services. According to the management and staff of the company, the improved performance was a clear indication that the GRC still held prospects of contributing to the local economy. In 2013, it hauled more than 1.032 million tonnes of manganese, representing 84 per cent of its set target of 1.2 million tonnes.  The volume raked in revenue of GH¢10 million for the company.  Speaking to the Daily

Ghana will be seeking answers to some of its pressing urban management challenges at this year’s UN Habitat World Urban Forum (WUF) scheduled to take place in the Columbian city of Medellin from April 5 to 11 this year. The country has participated in previous fora but it will, for the first time, mount an exhibition to showcase some of its successes in its urban management practices. The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Akwasi Opong-Fosu, in an interaction with the new Colombian

A 24-year-old teacher at the First Baptist Preparatory School in Agona Swedru has been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for defiling a 13-year-old pupil in his room. The teacher, Amos Nyarkoh, was charged with defilement. He pleaded guilty with explanation. He told the Swedru Circuit Court that he had no intention of defiling the victim, but the victim lured him to commit the act.   Victim’s visit He stated that whilst he was sleeping, he felt someone fondling him and he woke up. According

Some public and private schools are still charging fees in dollars, in contravention of Bank of Ghana (BoG) directives. Others are charging fees in cedis but continue to index them to the dollar.  While the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Law School and the University of Ghana Business School have indexed their fees to the dollar, the Liberty American School (LAS), the Ghana International School (GIS), the Ecole Francaise Jacques Prevert and the Galaxy International

The Mankessim Health Centre recorded a total of 335 teenage pregnancy cases last year, as compared to 217 cases in the previous year. A Senior Physician Assistant at the health centre, Mrs Mercy Antwi- Boasiako, who announced this, described the situation as serious and said the cases involved girls aged 10 to 19. Mrs Antwi- Boasiako was addressing a day’s annual performance review meeting of the Mfantseman Municipal Health Directorate in Saltpond. The meeting was attended by both medical and

The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Nii Armah Ashietey, has bemoaned the rate at which some children are subjected to all forms of child labour. He, therefore, condemned the act, calling on all stakeholders to support the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to address the issue which, he said, was hampering Ghana’s development. Speaking at a forum in Accra, Mr Ashietey said apart from affecting the progress of the child, child labour also contravened the international

A renowned heart surgeon, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng,  was left in a state of shock and disappointment in Kumasi last Friday, February 7, 2014,  when he realised that a scheduled memorial lecture for which he had been invited as the main speaker had been cancelled days back without his notice. He had driven from Accra to Kumasi to deliver the first annual Samuel Enin Memorial Lectures organised by the Ashanti Regional Chapter of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) only to be told by

The Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel Martey, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) has criticized Parliamentarians and Ministers of State who abandon their jobs to attend school. “How can you hold a governing position, live your office and go to school? Is Ghana short of graduates?” the Moderator questioned. Rt. Rev. Prof. Martey said this while delivering a sermon to mark the dedication of an ultra-modern structure put up by the Epiphany Congregation of

Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams says people who cannot match his achievements in life are not qualified to criticise him. The Presiding Bishop and General Overseer of the Christian Action Faith Ministries (CAFM) burst forth with that comment midway through his Sunday sermon when, according to him, certain members of his congregation hurled judgmental looks at him, as he narrated a story about how a rich Nigerian man depended on his (Duncan-Williams’) prayers to get round his insomnia. ‘You

The Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) has cumulatively cost the country GHC 48 billion in additional expenditure on public sector wages since its implementation in July 2010. The figure represents the cumulated extra spending on emoluments for the nearly 600,000 public sector workers who are on government payroll. “The implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) was said to be cost neutral, but our research has shown that since July 2010 there has been a divergence of GHC8 billion

A three-year-old boy was stung to death by bees at Gumani, near Tamale, on Saturday. The boy, identified only as Salim, has since been buried according to Islamic tradition.  Salim was playing with his friends around his home when the incident occurred.  According to an eye-witness account, Salim and his friends were playing by a big mango tree. At a point, one of his friends, who is older, climbed the tree to pluck mangoes for them, unaware that there were bees nestling on it.  In the process,

Cabinet will today discuss the new foreign exchange (forex) regulations announced by the Bank of Ghana last Wednesday. The Bank of Ghana notices announced measures to arrest the declining value of the cedi, a development which has caused some uneasiness in the business community. While some analysts have welcomed the measures and challenged the Bank of Ghana to ensure strict enforcement, others say the measures are unfair to businesses and will boost the illegal currency market, referred to as black

The government has asked the University of Ghana to rescind its decision to impose tolls on motorists who use the university campus roads. Despite the arguments put forward by the university and reports suggesting that Parliament had endorsed the decision, the Chief of Staff at the Presidency, Mr Prosper Bani, said the government would prefer that the motoring public was not burdened by the university authorities. Mr Bani told Graphic Online last Saturday that as indicated by the Minister of Roads

An Accra District Court on Saturday threw out the case involving policy Think Tank Imani Ghana and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT). The Executive Director of Imani Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe was on January 17 dragged to court over claims that he evaded the contributions of his staff to SSNIT.But presenting the case in court, lead Counsel for Imani Ghana, Lawyer Akoto Ampaw disagreed with SSNIT and asserted that the nation’s pensions regulator misled the honourable court with

An unidentified middle-aged woman met her untimely death Sunday morning when a haulage truck rammed a taxi she and others were traveling on, killing her instantly and injuring four others. The injured, including the driver of the taxi have been rushed to the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Sekondi where they are said to be in critical condition.The driver of the Mercedes Benz haulage truck with the registration number GN 7790 – 12, who was unhurt, however abandoned the truck and bolted.The

Genius Creative Media, in collaboration with Mcjoy Advertising and Africa Media Consult, has honoured the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of First Klass Hospital, Dr Steve Ogbordjor, for his personal contribution to the development of society. Presenting the award to the CEO at his residence at Konongo in the Asante Akyem Central municipality, the CEO of Africa Media Consult, Michael Nana Ampong, acknowledged the fact that Dr Ogbordjor had personally influenced the development of society, mostly in

The Ogbojo Traditional Council has reiterated its commitment to partner the government to bring into fruition development projects that will raise the living standards of residents. The Chief of Ogbojo, Nii Joseph Torgbor Obodai, explained that the government alone could not cater for all the development needs of Ghanaians and so the Ogbojo Traditional Council  would put in place measures to complement the efforts by the government. He indicated that the spirit of self-help was at the highest point

The Ashanti Regional Command of the Ghana Prison Service has taken delivery of over 3,000 mattresses to be distributed to prisons in the region. The mattresses were donated by the government and are part of the supportive initiatives which seek to improve upon life in the nation’s prisons. They will be distributed to the Kumasi Central Prisons, the Female Prisons, Obuasi Local Prison, Manhyia Prison, Ahinsan and Amanfrom Camp Prisons. Until the arrival of the mattresses, some prisoners, especially those in remand prisons, slept on blankets. The major challenge confronting the Ghana Prison Service is congestion, with most prison homes accommodating more than the number of people they are supposed to admit. Speaking to the Daily Graphic after receiving the package, the Ashanti regional Commander of Prisons, Mr Emmanuel Yao Adjator, commended the Director General of Prisons for her efforts at ensuring that there was an improvement in life in the various prisons in the country. He also commended the government for its efforts at providing the needs of the service in the form of logistics and other equipment which help them in their day-to-day management of the country’s prisons. The regional commander called for more of such donations to help improve the living conditions in the various prisons. Mr Adjator said the prison service would continue to work hard and put in place measures to improve the standard of living of inmates. “The current reformation measures being implemented by the service are aimed at ensuring that inmates get a holistic reformation,” he added. That, he said, would ensure that they did not return to prison after the completion of their jail terms.    

The Management of the King’s Village Medical Centre at Bontanga in the Kumbungu district of the Northern Region has carried through its threat to close down the facility following the failure of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to pay claims due the centre. As a result, patients who turn up for medical attention at the centre are being turned away because the hospital lacks the necessary resources to take care of them due to the lack of funds.   Only emergency The centre, which currently attends to only emergency and existing cases, is the only health facility in the area that caters for over 237 communities in the Kumbungu and Tolon districts. Last week, the management of the NHIS in the Northern Region expressed concern over the development and blamed it on administrative oversight which they assured had since been corrected. The Regional Manager, Alhaji Huudu Iddrisu, promised that claims for June and July would be cleared this week.    No funds received However, according to the administrator of the King’s centre, Nii Otu Ankrah, “we have not received any funds yet, neither has there been any correspondence to that effect.”  The administrator earlier explained that, “we are resorting to these measures because we have been pushed to the wall as we have exhausted all our finances.” He indicated that, “our major suppliers of drugs have refused to deliver because of the huge amounts we owe them. We have not even been able to pay our salaries as I speak to you now.”   NHIS owes facility Nii Otu intimated that the NHIS currently owed them about GH¢640, 000 (since May last year). “The last time we were paid claims was in May 2013, and even with that, we were only offered 25 per cent of the total amount of GH¢63,000 we were supposed to have received.” He said since they submitted their claims in November last year, it had not been honoured.    Situation is serious Nii Otu described the situation as serious, and added that if measures were not taken to arrest the problem, it could be a major setback to the health of the people. “The people are so deprived that they will not be able to pay for the health services we provide here. As much as we help them as a church organisation, we also need the necessary resources to operate successfully,” the administrator stated. The King's Village Project, as it is called, was established by Rev. Ben Owusu-Sekyere and his wife, Rev. Marion Owusu-Sekyere, in 2003, with support from the Christian Centre of the Assemblies of God Church based in Nottingham in the UK as a charity organisation.