Constituents of Kwabre East in the Ashanti Region express hostility and anger against their MP over poor roads. Despite the important contribution of Kwabre East constituency, which is in terms of casting votes for the ruling party NPP, has got the most deplorable roads. Aside the main Kumasi-Mampongten and Kumasi-Kenyase roads, the entire Kwabre East has no other tarred roads. The roads condition are moving from bad to worse. Residents say they have not been treated well enough. They accused their representative in parliament for not doing enough to lobby road development. ‘’ We gave NPP the most votes in...
More bribes are paid at health institutions – GII Prog. Dir.
The Programmes Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Awelana Addah, has observed that hospitals and health centers, in general, have become places where bribes exchange hands in Ghana. She said though the Ghana Police Service ranks high among institutions perceived most corrupt, the health sector is also becoming known for the canker. Ms Addah made this known in an interview on Wednesday, July 20. She was commenting on the recent findings of a survey on corruption conducted by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the United...
Bread makers in Nigeria start four-day strike
Bakers in Nigeria are turning off their ovens at midnight in a row over the rising cost of wheat flour and other products like diesel that are having an impact on their profits. Members of one of the bakers’ unions are demanding government subsidies. Emmanuel Onuarah, the president of the Premium Bread Makers Association, told the BBC that some bakeries had had to fire their staff as they were not able to pay salaries. He suggested that the government should stop charging a 15% tax on imported wheat – the price of which has already shot up this year because...
Gov’t to fight galamsey with speed-boats
In a bid to solve the incessant pollution of water-bodies by illegal mining activities, also known as ‘galamsey’, government says in the coming days it will introduce the use of speed-boats and river guards to clamp down on the perpetrators of such activities. River-bodies have been officially declared ‘Red Zones’ for mining, and authorities have suspended reconnaissance, prospecting and exploration in forest reserves except in exceptional circumstances. However, there are some recalcitrant entities which are still operating on the country’s water-bodies, thereby making the rivers and lakes unsafe. Giving a keynote address at the maiden Environmental Sustainability Summit (ESS) organised...
Feeding all SHS students needless, gov’t must support only needy persons – EduWatch
The Executive Director of think tank group, Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has questioned the propriety of spending huge sums of money feeding boarders at the senior high level while many schools across the country still lack basic infrastructure. The Education Minister reported to Parliament on Wednesday that the food crisis across senior high schools is due to high indebtedness to the buffer stock company. Commenting on the recurring crisis, Mr. Asare said the feeding must be restricted to only wards of parents who cannot afford it. “We do not understand why we continue to spend huge sums of money...
Nana Addo meets NPP’s new executives; urges them to ‘do all they can to break the 8’
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has tasked the newly elected National Executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to work hard to ensure that the party wins the 2024 elections. Nana Akufo-Addo says ‘breaking the eight’ should be the ultimate objective of the new leadership. Speaking at a meeting with the new executives led by the party’s new National Chairman, Stephen Ntim at the Jubilee House, President Akufo-Addo urged them to “do all they can to unite the party ahead of the elections.” The new executives were elected at the party’s just-ended national delegates conference, last weekend at the Accra...
Police Service most corrupt institution in Ghana – Survey
A latest survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service with other stakeholders in the fight against corruption has ranked the Ghana Police Service as the most corrupt institution among 23 other institutions sampled. The aim of the survey is to unearth corrupt institutions and make available data that will guide the formulation of policies that will look at nipping corruption in the bud. The survey indicated that more than 17.4 million bribes were paid in 2021 with police officers topping the list of officials who take bribes at 53.2%. The Ghana Immigration Service Officers and GRA customs officers come next,...
About GH¢5 billion was paid as bribe in private, public sectors in 2021 – GSS
A survey by the Ghana Statistical Service and its partners has revealed that an estimated amount of GH¢5 billion was paid as bribes in the year 2021. The report dubbed ‘2021 Ghana Integrity of Public Services Survey’ indicates that 26.7% public sector officials and 9.1% private sector players engaged in bribery acts. The survey was conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service in collaboration with other stakeholders in the fight against corruption. The report also said corruption was prevalent within the Ghana Police Service. The service recorded 53.2% of corruption cases, followed by the Ghana Immigration Service and the Ghana Revenue...
Parliament approves $750m loan agreement
Parliament has approved a $750 million loan agreement to finance capital and growth-related expenditures in the 2022 budget. The facility forms part of the government’s international capital market programme (ICMP) aimed at raising funds to finance critical infrastructure projects in sectors such as roads, energy, railways and health, as captured in the 2022 budget. Proceeds from the facility will also enable the government to meet its revenue projections in the budget and support government’s liability management. The agreement, which is between the government of Ghana and the African ExportImport Bank (AFREXIMBANK), is also expected to provide the needed foreign exchange...
Sustaining galamsey fight: Lands Ministry to track excavators – Control room ready
ALL excavators in mining concessions will be tracked electronically as part of major measures to clamp down on illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has disclosed. Already, he said, the Minerals Commission had set up a control room for the effective rollout of the initiative and was working to complete the procurement of the tracking devices in a couple of months. Speaking at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra yesterday, the minister said the decision to deploy the tracking devices was to enforce the Minerals and Mining (Mineral Operations – Tracking...