Kennedy Agyapong of Assin Central and Henry Quartey of Ayawaso Central won’t lose their seats despite missing more than 15 straight House sessions, according to the Parliament’s Privileges Committee.
According to a citinewsroom.com article, the committee did not make a conclusion regarding Sarah Adwoa Safo, a colleague and the MP (Member of Parliament) for Dome Kwabenya, and instead left her fate up to the full House.
Henry Boakye-Yiadom, an Akwatia MP and member of the Privileges Committee, revealed this in an interview with Citi TV. He said the committee decided by a vote of 15 to 12 that Agyapong and Quartey’s justifications for skipping class without permission were sufficient and that they shouldn’t lose their seats.
Adwoa Safo failed to appear before the committee to give a justification for her absence from the House since December 2021, he continued, which prevented the committee from making a decision on her.
“With Kennedy Agyapong, there were 15 votes against 12, likewise Henry Quartey. In Adwoa Safo’s case, the Chair of the committee said since she had never appeared before us, we did not vote. We have thus decided to hand her over to Parliament to determine her fate,” he said.
The decision of the committee will, however, be presented to the plenary for approval.
Ras Mubarak, a former member of parliament, requested that the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, refer the three New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs to the House’s Privileges Committee in order to have them removed for missing more than 15 consecutive sessions during the first session of the eighth Parliament.
A political Historian with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr. Samuel Adu Gyamfi, has bemoaned the hardship in the country under President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Speaking to Piesie Okrah on Dwboase on TV XYZ, Dr Adu Gyamfi kicked against the introduction of the electronic transaction levy (E-Levy), stressing that the policy has bitten lower income earners hard.
The lecturer who made reference to the street protest by pressure group Arise Ghana recently stated that the demonstration was justified because the leaders of the country have not shown empathy to the masses at a time the economy is crumbling.
“The president is doing exactly what the government was doing that triggered the ”kume preko’demo in 1995 which Akufo-Addo led,” he lamented in Akan.
He said the government’s response to the demands of Ghanaians was not encouraging and that series of demonstrations will be staged against Akufo-Addo as the hardship bites more
Currently, four teacher unions have embarked on a strike action over the government’s inability to pay them cost of living allowance (CoLA).
The representatives of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the National Graduate Association of Teachers (NAGRAT) stormed out of the negotiations with the government over their demands.
The Public Services Workers’ Union (PSWU) has also served notice of its intention to embark on industrial action on Tuesday, July 19, to demand a 20 percent Cost of Living Allowance.
The union said this has become necessary due to the worsening economic conditions in the country.
It said the decision to strike was taken at an emergency meeting on July 8.
Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane won the FA Cup and the League Cup with Liverpool last season
Former Liverpool team-mates Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah are on the updated 10-man shortlist for the Confederation of African Football’s (Caf) Men’s Player of the Year award for 2021-22.
Mane, who joined German champions Bayern Munich last month, had the upper hand over Salah at international level this year.
Senegal beat Salah’s Egypt in the Africa Cup of Nations final in February before winning their 2022 World Cup play-off tie the month after.
Mane is the last man to have been crowned Africa’s best, back in 2019 – since when the awards have been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez, a Premier League winner with Manchester City, Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and Liverpool midfielder Naby Keita also remain after the initial 30-man long list was cut down.
Cameroon’s Vincent Aboubakar, who became the first player to score eight goals at a single Nations Cup in over half a century, Karl Toko Ekambi, Achraf Hakimi, Sebastien Haller and Kalidou Koulibaly complete the nominees.
At club level, forwards Mane and Salah, both 30, won the FA Cup and League Cup in England last season but narrowly missed out on the Premier League title when the Reds lost 1-0 to Real Madrid in the European Champions League final.
Salah, who has claimed the Caf prize twice, ended the club season with a share of the Premier League Golden Boot, along with Tottenham Hotspur and South Korea striker Son Heung-min.
The Egyptian won domestic player of the season awards from the Football Writers’ Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association.
Caf has also trimmed its lists for several other men’s categories, including Coach and Young Player of the Year – with Manchester United midfielder Hannibal Mejbri still in the running for the latter.
A panel of Caf legends, technical experts and journalists decided on the nominees, covering performances from September 2021 until June this year.
The nominees for the women’s awards were announced last week and all the winners will be named on 21 July.
Representatives of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the National Graduate Association of Teachers (NAGRAT) have walked out of a meeting called by the government.
The negotiation with the government was over their demand for Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) for which they embarked on a strike.
The two associations accused the government of betrayal of trust for asking them to call off their strike before negotiations.
Speaking to Power FM reporter Wisdom Hededzome after the walkout, Angel Carbonu, President of NAGRAT said the government’s posturing smacks of mistrust as it wanted the teachers to call off the strike before any negotiation.
To him, that is not possible now.
The GNAT President, Rev. Owusu Ansah, who was part of the meeting that ended in a stalemate indicated that the strike was still in force.
“We are still on strike,” he said angrily as he walked from the press.
The government officials who were at the meeting were Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta; Minister for Education, Dr. Osei Yaw Adutwum; and Bright Wereko Brobbey, deputy Minister for Employment and Labour Relations
Austin Gamey, a labor expert, has urged the government to examine one of its signature initiatives, Free SHS.
He believed that the Free SHS should exclusively serve the underprivileged while allowing the middle class to pay for their wards’ tuition.
Speaking on Asaase radio, Austin Gamey said that given the current state of the economy, it makes sense for the government to focus on helping those who are struggling to pay their fines.
“We are in a precarious position…
Therefore, he asked, “Should we target the Free Senior High School [education] the way it is, or should we keep it as is and allow those who are in the middle class or so to be able to pay for their children’s school fees?
He questioned, “Why do we have to pay for everyone? The labor expert continued, “Someone who is in the poverty range that we have data on should be targeted and government pay for them.”
The 2017 implementation of the Free SHS policy intends to remove the financial component that serves as a barrier to education.
With the double-track approach, the implementation of this strategy has boosted average SHS enrollment from roughly 800,000 in 2015 to 1.2 million in 2021.
Since its start, the Free SHS program has been funded by petroleum revenue from the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) and general government coffers/the Consolidated Fund.
The policy, however, has been plagued by budgetary difficulties and delays in the supply of food to schools
The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) on Friday released a total of Gh12 million cedis as loans to students in tertiary institutions across the country.
A total of 10,000 students from 148 tertiary institutions in the country benefitted from this release which is the first payment being made after the official launching of the “No Guarantor Loan Scheme” on 9th June 2022.
The Chief Executive Officer of SLTF, Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah, who disclosed this to the media in Accra on Friday said, the amount covers payment to only first-time applicants for the first semester of the year.
First-time applicants from the University of Education, Winneba recorded 1523 as the highest recipients, followed by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) which had 787, the University of Ghana had 511, with Koforidua Technical University recording 488 students and Takoradi Technical University with 371 respectively.
He stated that the lowest amount received by each student ranged from Gh1500 being the lowest and Gh3000 as the highest depending on the needs of the students after a means-testing assessment by the SLTF before disbursement to the students.
Nana Agyei Yeboah said the payment would go a long way to ease the burden of students as they continue their education on various campuses across the country.
The CEO explained that all continuing students who are beneficiaries of the Students Loan Scheme in the country were paid in March this year.
He stated that everything possible would be done to ensure that payment of funds to students would be made timeously to the beneficiaries to ensure that the students do not have challenges with funding.
Nana Agyei Yeboah appealed to beneficiaries of the scheme to ensure that they voluntarily pay back their loans to ensure that the government gets enough funds at all times to run the scheme for the benefit of others.
The CEO said the only people who have so far not been paid were those who have applied but have not completed the submission of the required information to the scheme and urged them to expedite action in the completion of their documentation and take their biometrics so they could be paid.
He appealed to those who have not yet applied to the scheme to do so since they could also benefit from the loan which was readily available to all qualified students irrespective of political, social, religious and ethnic orientation.
Background
The difficulties involved in getting people to guarantee for students loans applicants used to be a major challenge to many students in tertiary institutions in the country.
This prompted the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government to introduce the No Guarantor scheme to ensure that tertiary students are able to secure loans to support their education without much difficulty.
Many Ghanaians have commended the government for the successful rolling out of the no guarantor scheme which had brought about much relief to students, parents and the institutions of study.
To ensure that beneficiaries received their funds without much challenges, they are required to have E-zwich cards (a smartcard issued by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System Limited (GhIPSS) for easy payment.
The Ministry of Education has given a firm assurance that schools that are reporting food shortages should expect “full” supplies by Tuesday, July 12.
This follows a meeting of the sector minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, with the leadership of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) over the weekend.
The Upper West Region chapter of CHASS wrote to the Ghana Education Service (GES) directorate last week that schools risked shutting down as a result of a dearth in supplies.
“If sufficient money and food is not received in the schools by Friday, 15th July 2022, we will be compelled to tell parents and guardians to either feed their wards or come for them since it will be impossible to continue feeding them with nothing,” Upper West CHASS said in its letter.
This forced the meeting between Dr Adutwum and the leadership of CHASS.
“The issue has been resolved and all affected schools are expected to receive full supplies latest by Tuesday 12th July 2022,” a brief statement signed by the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ministry, Kwesi Kwarteng, said.
The Executive Director of African Education Watch (Eduwatch), Mr Kofi Asare, has advised Ghanaians not to blame the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, for the seeming food shortages in some Senior High Schools (SHS) in the country.
According to him, the current food shortage challenges were a result of the Ministry of Finance refusing to release enough cash to pay suppliers of food to the schools.
Responding to questions on the AM SHOW on JoyNews on Monday via Zoom, Mr Kofi Asare said, the Education Ministry and the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) had put in place prudent policies and cash flow projections to ensure that the SHS keep running without challenges.
He explained that the Finance Ministry’s refusal to release the right amount of funds to pay the food suppliers made it difficult for them to have enough cash to buy and supply to the schools.
“Look until the Finance Ministry makes it a point of releasing funds to the suppliers regularly and on time, it would be difficult for this shortage issue to end since they cannot continue borrowing money to buy food stocks at huge sums for supply in the schools”. The Ex. Director said.
Mr Asare suggested that the feeding component of the Free Senior High School should be looked at critically and make parents who can afford to pay.
The Ex. Director’s call follows recent media reports of food shortages in some SHS in the country leading to many parents getting worried about how their children and wards would be fed while in school.
But the Spokesperson for the Education Ministry, Mr Kwasi Kwarteng, in a Facebook post over the weekend said the government has met the leadership of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) to find a lasting solution to the issue.
He said the Ministry and the leadership of CHASS have resolved the issue and food would be supplied to the affected schools by Tuesday.
Hopeson Adorye, a prominent NPP member, has vowed to organize a protest against the person accused of being behind the recent brutality towards Ideal College students and staff. Hopeson Adorye claims that there is good reason to doubt Mr. Clement Gyato’s actions, who is alleged to have invaded the school with men in police uniform and suspected land guards to destroy an assembly hall that was being built. “I’m heading here to set up a protest. He yelled on Asempa FM’s Ekosiisen program, “If Clement Gyato is a man, he should enter the land again.
Hopeson Adorye, who was furious, claimed that Clement Gyato’s actions had put a burden on the current administration since he was allegedly going around illegally razing the homes of Ghanaian citizens while pretending to be reclaiming public land. To the best of his knowledge, according to Hopeson Adorye, Gyato lacks such legitimate authority and instead abuses the government for personal benefit at the expense of defenseless individuals. Therefore, he requested that the president, the inspector general of police, and the minister for lands and natural resources look into Gyato’s actions and prosecute him.
“This guy, I’m going to rebel against my own country over this if Samuel Abu Jinapor doesn’t get fired. We cannot allow this lunacy to win, he raged.
The director of Ideal College reportedly attempted to question the alleged land guards during the demolition on Thursday. Ideal College has now claimed that the interview was an illegal exercise. Some pupils were interested in the incident when the director was supposedly attacked by the enraged land guards during the process. A total of 23 students suffered injuries of varying severity after joining the group of students who rushed to the director’s aid.
Following the tragedy, some Mempeasem residents—where Ideal College is located—have claimed that Clement Gyato’s actions have also subjected them to similar atrocities. A victim who spoke on “Ekosii Sen” claimed that Gyato and his men unlawfully took possession of his legally bought land, causing him to lose both his 20+ year-old bakery and a four-bedroom home. The victims claimed that, in spite of the state allegedly seizing their properties, new private owners were invariably given the properties as soon as they were booted off.
“They will painfully remove you, and within two days the ground will be covered in fence walls. In the interim, we have legitimate land titles and documentation,” the victim said.
