* Friday, 22 January 2010 | ILO provides 320,000 dollars to eight districts * Source: GNA | Swedru (C/R), Jan. 22, GNA - The International Labour Organization (ILO) through its Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP), has provided 320,000 dollars to eight districts in the Central Region to enable them to implement several economic development activities. Each district is to receive 40,000 dollars to set up an Enterprise Development Fund (EDF) to implement the ILO's Local Economic Development (LED) activities.
The aim is to create jobs in the districts for the acceleration of poverty reduction and improvement in the general wellbeing of people. The beneficiary districts are Agona West, Awutu-Senya, Mfantsiman, Twifo-Hemang-Lower-Denkyira, Effutu, Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam and Gomoa East and West.
The National Projects Coordinator of the ILO, Mr Emmanuel Baisie told journalists after the opening of a two-day capacity building workshop for district level officials on Wednesday that the fund was not a micro-finance activity.
Mr Baisie said assessment conducted by his outfit indicated that the selected districts lacked the requisite skills for the effective management of funds and that the level of deficiencies could undermine the efficient and transparent utilization of the funds. The workshop, he said, was therefore aimed at strengthening the capacity of the officials to enable them manage the fund well and to assist small business associations to build their capacity. Mr Baisie said the fund could also be used to set up a credit union or serve as leverage for sourcing other funds to grow small scale businesses and urged the participants to ensure that they worked hard to achieve the objective for which the fund was set up.
Mr Francis Kwame Odei, barrister/solicitor, in a presentation during the workshop, said the ultimate purpose of the fund was to promote local economic development in the beneficiary districts. He hoped that the target group of the DWCP, being mainly women, the youth and the disabled would benefit fully from the operations of the fund.
He advised the participants to assess all activities to be funded properly to ensure value for money and sustainability of the projects. 22 Jan 10 | | > BACK to TOP < | Some workers fear pension so they reduce their ages * Source: The Ghanaian Times | Workers have been urged to set their priorities right by ensuring proper planning towards retirement.
Mr. Michael Kofi Bansah, acting Director General of Ghana Prisons Service, gave the advise Thursday at a two-day sensitization workshop for 50 prison officers in Accra on the National Pensions act, 2008, (Act 766) and said every employee would certainly proceed on retirement one day after attaining the mandatory pensionable age of 60.
“This requires strategic planning by employees putting their priorities right,” he stressed, adding “many Ghanaian employees, including Prison officers, least ponder over this reality right from the onset until they are very close to pension.”
In many cases, he said, “pensionable employees are fear stricken and depressed when they are due for retirement with some going to the extent of doctoring the records of their date of birth in order to stay at post a few more years.”
That tendency, he said, stemmed from the fact that “life after pension does not hold any fortune for.” He therefore viewed the workshop as an opportunity to enlighten the officers so that they could take advantage of it and set their priorities right.
Mr. Bansah said successive regimes and governments had made fruitless efforts at finding better and more efficient pension schemes to avert the degrading fate that the new pension scheme was to salvage and demystify problems hitherto created by old pension schemes so as to give hope and dignified life prospects to employees during retirement.
The Interior Ministers, Cletus Avoka, in a speech read on his behalf, said issues of workers’ pay and other emoluments had always been a sore point between government and employees, especially in countries where government was the biggest employer.
The Pension Act, he said, was to improve savings towards sustainable income during retirement. Mr. Avoka said the introduction of a three-tier pension scheme consisting of both mandatory and voluntary schemes was an attempt to reform both the Cap 30 as well as the SSNIT Pension Scheme.
Mr David Adom, Chief Executive of AA&G Services Limited, a consulting firm that is sensitizing the participants on the scheme, said the programme would help the officers to properly manage their lives when the scheme became operational. | | > BACK to TOP < | Fire Service sets up Market Safety Department in Kumasi * Source: GNA | Kumasi, Jan. 22, GNA - The Ashanti Regional Office of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), has set up a Market Safety
Department to educate market women and traders in the Kumasi metropolis on fire prevention and management. It has also launched a campaign to assist students in first and second cycle schools as well as people communities to appreciate the
harmful effects of fire outbreaks and the need to take precautionary measures. Mr Francis Darko-Kono, Regional Operations Officer of the GNFS, announced this at a launch of an anti-fire campaign by the
Kumasi Metropolitan office of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) for media practitioners on Thursday. He said the recurring incidence of fire at the markets should be a source of great worry to all. Mr Darko-Kono said fire prevention and management demand total collaboration of all and sundry and also called for
intensive public education on it. Kumasi recorded 420 fire outbreaks in 2009 and out of this, 205 were domestic, 62 were commercial, 63 vehicular, 30
industrial, 16 electrical, six institutional and 26 bush fires. The fires claimed six lives and left 311 with various degrees of injuries. Mr Darko-Kono said lack of adequate and modern fire-fighting equipment and appliances as well as obstructions and
inaccessibility of some locations, were major hindrances to swift response to fire emergencies. He said the Service was doing everything to reduce the incidence of fire by 51 per cent and noted that they would need the
cooperation of all stakeholders including individuals to achieve that. Mr Yao Doe-Tamakloe, the Regional NADMO Coordinator, called for effective collaboration between the media and the
organization to educate community members on disaster prevention. Police Chief Superintendent Joseph Obeng, Ashanti Central Police Divisional Commander, appealed to the public to inform
the police on all acts by individuals or groups that could either cause disaster or crime for immediate intervention and action. Mrs Vivien Akumia, the Metro NADMO Coordinator, said it was important to educate and build the capacity of media
personnel for them to be able to give out the right information to check fire disasters during the harmattan season. | > BACK to TOP < | Methodist Bishop to face disciplinary committee * Source: Daily Graphic | The Administrative Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana, who is alleged to have sexually misconducted himself, has been summoned to appear before the Disciplinary Committee of the church by February 3, 2010.
A final decision will then be taken on the bishop, Rt. Rev. Kow Bosomefi Egyir, who is currently on suspension and holidaying in the United States of America (USA). He was suspended after he had allegedly admitted before a pastoral committee set up to investigate the matter that he had misconducted himself sexually.
Bishop Egyir is alleged to have raped the 23-year-old daughter of another high-ranking member of the church. The alleged victim, a student in a tertiary institution in Ghana, was alleged to have been sent by her father to deliver a parcel to the bishop when the incident allegedly took place.
Responding to allegations that the church was covering up an alleged sexual misconduct by Bishop Egyir, the Presiding Bishop of the church, the Most Rev. Professor Emmanuel Asante, told the Daily Graphic in Accra, Thursday, that no issue of rape had been reported to the church.
He said even if a charge or complaint of rape was reported to the church, it was not competent to deal with criminal matters and so it would have advised the complainant to report the case to the appropriate authorities.
Throwing more light on the allegation, the Most Rev. Prof. Asante said a man purporting to be the victim’s brother reported the bishop’s alleged sexual misconduct to the church.
Consequently, a high-powered pastoral committee was set up to investigate allegation. The Most Rev. Prof. Asante said when Bishop Egyir appeared before the committee, he allegedly admitted having misconducted himself sexually but indicated that “Bishop Egyir did not say he had raped her”.
The Presiding Bishop said sexual misconduct was an issue which the church did not deal with lightly and cited sub-sections one and five of Section 155 of the Standing Orders of the church, which listed immorality or imprudent and unchristian behaviour or misconduct, as well as unministerial conduct, as offences.
He said after Bishop Egyir had allegedly admitted the offence, the pastoral committee suspended him from all ministerial duties, including his position as Administrative Bishop.
He said a disciplinary committee was immediately set up to prefer the appropriate charges in relation to the offences to address the issue formally.
According to him, before the charges could be laid, the Bishop requested for permission to travel to the USA to attend to personal duties.
The Most Rev. Prof. Asante said Bishop Egyir had written to the church to acknowledge receipt of the charges and the necessity for him to appear before the committee.
“Whether he appears or not, the church will institute further disciplinary action against him, including expulsion, which is the highest punishment. This is where we are now,” he added.
He said after the final decision had been taken, a pastoral letter would be issued to the congregation and the press because of the interest the issue had generated.
“I want to state that there is no collusion whatsoever from the church. The church is not covering up anything or anybody. What has reached us is the issue of immorality,” he said.
He said even if the Bishop was prosecuted and set free by the appropriate authorities on the basis of consensuality, the church would still handle the moral aspect of the matter.
“The issue of rape has not come to our notice at all. That was not the complaint lodged with us. We do not have the capacity to deal with criminal matters and we will not do that.
We will also not undertake or attempt to do anything which, by the law, is the responsibility or preserve of some institution or person,” he stated.
The Presiding Bishop said anyone or any institution could take up any legal action against Bishop Egyir.
"The church wishes to assure all concerned that in dealing with the allegations, it will respect the laws of the land, including the Constitution, and will not do anything to violate or undermine them," he stated.
Meanwhile, the United States Embassy in Accra says it has not received any petition from any individual or organisation for the repatriation of the Administrative Bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana to face prosecution in Ghana.
"The Ambassador, His Excellency Donald G, Teitelbum, is out of town, We have checked from the mail's registry and from the Ambassador's Secretary records and there is no such petition," Ms Zainab Mahama of the Public Affairs Section of the US Embassy told the Daily Graphic in response to a question as to what the embassy was doing about the petition.
She said the first time the embassy heard of it was through radio discussions on Wednesday and in the Insight newspaper.
As to what the embassy would do, she said there was nothing before the embassy for any action to be taken and it would, therefore, be difficult to say what was being done.
The petitioner, however, faxed a copy of a receipt note signed by a guard at the embassy as having received a letter from Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah.
Another source at the embassy, however, told the Daily Graphic in a separate interview that unless the Bishop was criminally charged, nothing could be done about it.
It stated that even if the Bishop was charged, it was only the police which could request the embassy for his repatriation.
When contacted, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, said the Attorney-General's Department could only take up the matter after a formal complaint had been lodged.
"The petitioners can petition us so that we can take it up from there," she said.
According to her, the A-G's office would need witnesses to facilitate any investigations and prosecution, if there was the need.
The petitioner, Mr Osei Yeboah, who is the leader of the Resurrection Methodist Church, Adenta, described the inaction of the Methodist Church and the police as saddening and disturbing.
According to him, when persons considered as low class raped women, the police took appropriate action and the law was made to work.
"When can the triumph of justice be witnessed when those who are supposed to protect the law are themselves breakers of the law and the law is only applied against the poor, weak and vulnerable in society?" he asked.
Mr Yeboah said the offence was not just about morality but also a criminal one and the church must be seen to be doing the right thing and not condoning criminality.
He explained that the family could have refused to report the incident to the police because of the stigma and also the fact that the victim's father was one of the topmost laity officials in the church.
"This rape case by the second-in-command of the Methodist Church is a clear-cut case for religious bodies, civil society and the law enforcement agencies in Ghana." he added. | > BACK to TOP < |
_____________________________________________________ ----- | Archived News for 2010 | | | Friday, 22 January 2010 | - ILO provides 320,000 dollars to eight districts - Some workers fear pension so they reduce their ages - Fire Service sets up Market Safety Department in Kumasi - Methodist Bishop to face disciplinary committee - Artistes Sing For Haiti In Accra | | | Go to 23.01.2010 Go to 21.01.2010 Go to 20.01.2010 | | Your REPORT Your STORIES * Your PHOTOS PUBLISH NOW! | 
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| | | | * 22.01.2010 | Artistes Sing For Haiti In Accra * Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana | Only a handful of artistes had come on board for the benefit concert for Haiti scheduled for the Alliance Francaise on Saturday, January 23 by the middle of last week...,
but the number had swelled considerably by the end of the week and the organisers are now politely turning some of them down. Haiti was hit by a huge earthquake last week. The international community has united to offer relief and some concerned outfits and individuals in Ghana have also decided to raise cash and awareness about the situation in Haiti at a benefit night which will feature music performances, messages and film clips on the Caribbean nation.
Organised by a group called Friends of Haiti and the Iinternational Red Cross in Ghana, in collaboration with Creative Storm, artistes that have confirmed their participation are Becca, Reggie Rockstone, Praye, Kwabena Kwabena, Kings Jubilee, Gyedu lay Ambolley, Kubolor, Bernice Offei, Black Rasta and the Noyam Dance Company.
"We have been overwhelmed by the desire of our artistes to help show love for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in Haiti. They are all appearing free of charge," Dr Kwesi Owusu of Creative Storm said in a chat with Showbiz.
Haiti became the world's first black-led republic and the first independent Caribbean state when it threw off French colonial control and slavery in a series of wars in the early 19th century. However, decades of poverty, environmental degradation, violence, instability and dictatorship have left it as the poorest nation in the Americas.
A mostly mountainous country with a tropical climate, Haiti's location, history and culture once made it a potential tourist hot spot, but instability and violence, especially since the 1980s, have severely dented that prospect.
A 7.0-magnitude quake, Haiti's worst in two centuries, struck the country last week. President Rene Preval has been quoted as saying that more than 100,000 Haitians had died. The Red Cross also says over three million people have been affected by the quake.
According to Dr Owusu, people who want to help with the relief effort in Haiti can text to 1962 on all networks. He said resources generated from Ghana will be sent over to Haiti through the International Red Cross. According to him, some diplomatic missions in this country also plan to make some input for a successful event," Dr Owusu said.
Journalist Kweku Sakyi-Addo, who has visited and written about Haiti in the international media, is expected to be among the people to give messages at the benefit concert.
Sponsors for the event include Mastermix Studios, Friends of Haiti, Alliance Francaise, International Red Cross, EKB Entertainment, Jungle Productions and Creative Storm. Many American entertainment and sports figures have already raised millions of dollars for the relief effort in Haiti. | | | | | | |
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