Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Bernard Antwi Boasiako (Wontumi), and other party executives are expected to hold an emergency meeting with the Council of Elders of the party as it takes steps to resolve all election-related disputes in the region.
The elders were at the Asokwa Magistrate Court on Monday (11 April 2022) to push for an out-of-court settlement in the case involving some party members who were charged with rioting after locking up the Subin Constituency party office last month.
The accused persons launched the protest against what they said were infractions in the recently held polling station elections in the constituency.
By Court
The presiding judge Akua Boahene declined the request for an out-of-court settlement and directed the case to the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) center as she adjourned the case to 9 May 2022.
Counsel for the 13 accused persons, Annis Moghtar Mohayideen, said the Council of Elders can still pursue their request for an out-of-court settlement.
“The court asked that the parties settle their differences through the Alternative Dispute Resolution channel. The Council of Elders, can, however, still pursue their request for the matter to be settled out of court”, he said.
Intervention
An internal election to pick new officers of the NPP has been characterized by violence and lawsuits. Elections in the Mampong, Manso Nkwanta, and other areas have been put on hold due to legal tussle.
The meeting is expected to be held on Wednesday (13 April 2022), dailymailgh.com has gathered. Chairman of the Council, Rev Mark Adu Gyamfi believes their intervention will put matters to rest.
“This is a political issue and must not be settled in court. We are meeting all the executives on Wednesday [over these issues] and tell them our piece of mind. As a party, we should be able to settle our issues out of court. So, henceforth, we are giving them the notice that they should never go to any court for resolutions without our permission, if they have to, we will recommend the court to them. We want all our party issues settled by ourselves.”
The Ghana Football Association’s (GFA) Communications Director, Henry Asante Twum, has stated that the GFA would shortly announce the appointment of a permanent coach for the Black Stars.
Otto Addo and his technical team oversaw Ghana’s qualification for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Ghana drew 0-0 with the Super Eagles of Nigeria at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi and drew 1-1 with Nigeria in the second leg at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja.
Otto Addo and his technical team were appointed after Ghana’s poor performance at the 33rd Africa Cup of Nations which was led by Serbian trainer Milovan Rajevac.
“I do not think it will take much time. They are in communication with the individuals concerned, having regular discussions with their employers, and many factors are being considered. But, again, the government of Ghana is the employer of the coach of the Black Stars and here is the case where we had four coaches qualifying us for the World Cup, he said on Luv FM.
“In terms of contractual engagement, a lot will go into it, so it’s tough to discuss these things. So, engagements are still ongoing, and I’m sure we will communicate our position as soon as a decision is made,” he added.
Asante Twum hinted that the FA is considering President Nana Akufo Addo’s statement about maintain the interim technical team when the entire squad met him at the Jubilee House.
“The President said we should consider taking the four coaches to the World Cup, and this is a very important request he made, but the coach is under contract, he is employed, and if we want to engage his services, we need to go back to Dortmund to request for his release as we did earlier.
“We cannot show disrespect to the first gentleman of the land; it is something he has personally spoken about in public and confidence and meetings with the leadership of the FA, so it is high on the agenda,” said Henry Asante Twum.
The former President John Mahama has said the rise in COVID-19 and its’ other variant in Africa is as a result of a failed procedure on the vaccination process.
He believes that a proper way must be done in order to increase the vaccination in most Africa countries.
Below is his full statement
When Ghana became the first country in Africa to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative to equitably distribute COVID vaccines, I had a glimmer of hope; that solidarity would prevail to protect people everywhere from the virus. Fast forward to today and a third of the world remains completely unvaccinated, including 80% of people in Africa. Moreover, lifesaving treatments are only available in a handful of countries.
Many countries did not, and still do not understand the gaps that the pandemic will not end until all people, in every country, are protected from COVID-19. The “me-first” approach has left large swaths of Africa without the tools needed to slow the spread of new variants, stop preventable deaths and build back economies, consequently, holding the entire world back.
Obviously, we cannot leave solidarity to chance the next time around. To safeguard our future, we need a new international system anchored in solidarity, transparency, accountability and equity to enable countries at every income level to detect, alert and respond to health threats before they become pandemics.
In a new Call to Action, the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention has proposed a bold path forward to address such gaps and dramatically strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response systems through a new Pandemic Treaty or Convention. The new set of recommendations call for a positively incentivized system governed at the heads of state level where compliance with agreed preparedness standards, alert protocols and response efforts are overseen by an independent monitoring and assessment body at arm’s length to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Even though WHO’s leadership in setting international standards in preparedness and response and supporting countries achieve targets is still vital, this independent body would add an additional layer of accountability to our international system by having the mandate to call on and call out countries based on performance of pandemic preparedness, detection and response.
We must also look through an equitable and realistic lens when we set targets and monitor for performance, as levels of pandemic preparedness will vary by country. For instance, following the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, many countries strengthened their capacity to contain outbreaks through enhanced laboratory capacity, disease surveillance and crossborder coordination. Many of these systems moved into gear to respond to the growing COVID19 threat back in 2020. However, countries without this recent history may be farther behind on the road to pandemic preparedness – a new Pandemic Treaty must ensure that targets are ambitious and appropriate, and no matter where a country falls on this spectrum, technical and financial support is readily available to enable countries to meet goals.
The African Union has done a laudable job establishing a range of continental funds and platforms to pool resources and provide technical and financial assistance to all countries – from the AU COVID-19 Response Fund to the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team. A new Pandemic Treaty must ensure this kind of collaboration takes place at the international level because global health security is only as strong as its weakest link.
A new multilateral financing facility to ensure all countries can access predictable and sustainable funding without incurring catastrophic debt will be a necessary step. And we must consider tools (PPE, test kits and vaccines) and countermeasures that contain outbreaks, as global public goods and services to be financed, produced and distributed as such.
Finally, a new Pandemic Treaty must address gaps in our understanding and ability to stop pathogens at their source by reducing the risks of disease spillovers from animals to humans. While Ebola and more recently COVID-19 has added new urgency to address emerging challenges at the intersection of environmental, animal and human health, there is insufficient investment, little oversight and a lack of coordination within countries.
A Treaty must encourage more research and enhance coordination among all stakeholders. From stopping outbreaks at the source to alerting the world and responding once an outbreak is underway, we need as much mutual assurance as possible along the timeline of events. Without clear accountability at each stage, calls for solidarity may yet again fail the next time an outbreak with pandemic potential emerges. We have the tools and solutions to prevent this – let’s put them to use through a new, equitable Pandemic Treaty.
The price of maize has shot up in the markets of Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital.
A check at some market areas in the city, including the Racecourse market, and Bantama market among others saw a rise in the price of the commodity.
A bag of yellow maize which was sold at GHS500 has been increased to GHS600 whilst the white maize has risen from GHS450 to GHS550.
A rubber of the yellow maize has gained from GHS50 to GHS60 whilst the white maize has soared from GHS45 to GHS55.
“The price increases every week,” a trader told Class News’ regional correspondent, Elisha Adarkwah, adding that, “sometimes, in a day, the price you will buy in the morning, you won’t get it at the same price in the afternoon.”
“Looking at the situation, we’re anticipating the price will rise to GHS700 per bag in the coming days,” a trader at the Racecourse market said.
The traders attributed the increase in the price of the commodity to its shortage on the market, the cost of transporting it, and the high price of chemicals the farmers use to cultivate.
The government recently banned the exportation of maize and soybean to enhance food security and ensure there is an increase in poultry and livestock production.
Professor Yaw Gyampo is in support of the controversial statement from the Minister of the Ghana National Security.
The Minister said that recent rulings by the justices of the country’s courts seem to favour the government and it is quite not good.
The GeneralSecetray of UTAG -Legon in a post madeitt clear that he is in fullsupport ofwhat Kan Dapaah
Below is the full statement cited by countryghana on his facebook page:
It is either the few very professional (but politically hawkish) people are being too partisan or completely do not know what they are talking about in their critique of Kan Dapaah’s candor.
Judicial oaths are not godly orders. They are not Biblical or Koranic injunctions that are even flouted with impunity by religious adherents. They are sworn and can be broken by the very fallible mortals who staff the bar and the bench.
It is a fact that there are some great independent minded judges in Ghana. But we cannot pretend or suddenly be afraid to point out quite frankly and without mincing words that, some people are also losing confidence in the judiciary and this is a major threat to national security.
To my mind, anyone who can’t understand this, does not only lack analytical astuteness. Such a person is also a political infant, a nation wrecker and a great threat to the quest for strong institutions, national cohesion, consensual politics, peace, and political stability, without which there can be no development.
We cannot offer partisan opposition or defense for everything. There must be an elite consensus on many issues that we must agree never to disagree on, else our drive towards the maturation of our democratization processes would be stampeded at all times.
The Prosecution in the Coup Plotters case on Monday, April 11, 2022, laid WhatsApp communication among some of the accused persons to the Court.
The 11th Prosecution Witness, Kabral Mohammed Ayembila, is a Cybersecurity and Digital Forensic Officer with 12 years of working experience at the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB).
He told the court in his evidence in chief, led by a Prosecutor, Winifred Sarpong that he received a written request attached to a Court order, from the investigation department of the NIB through its Director on October 14, 2019, to extract information from 10 mobile phones and 3 tablets.
These devices, he told the Court, had the names of the accused persons and others on them, including; Bright Debrah, Callister Ziaba, Col. Gameli, Ezor Kafui, and Dr. Frederick MacPalm.
The Witness told the 3-panel Court he and his team successfully extracted material/data from 11 of the 13 devices. Two devices, a Samsung notebook 2 and an iPad mini were not accessible to the extraction device, he said.
According to Kabral Mohammed Ayembila, they extracted “call logs, contacts, pdf files, word files, audio, video, and WhatsApp chats. All of these extracted data was put in an external hard drive” and returned to the “investigation department of NIB through the Director of National Intelligence Bureau.”
The Witness said the investigation team again reached out to him and his team after analysing the extracted data, to print out some data from the hard drive.
The printed data all came from a Samsung Galaxy S7 belonging to Dr. Frederick Mac Palm which was the only phone that had data relevant to the investigation.
It “was WhatsApp chats between Dr. Frederick MacPalm and some numbers saved as ACP Dr. Benjamin, Dr. Sam, Zikpi Gam, and a WhatsApp group by name Take Action Ghana Executive platform. The extraction team went ahead to print out the chats without media because they requested for only chat and per the extraction device media files are separated from chats.”
The witness later told the Court under cross-examination that though a very simple and modern computer could be used to extract the data, an extraction device was used, “to ensure the integrity of the data for the purposes of investigation.”
The Students’ Representative Council (SRC) President of the Ghana School of Law, Wonder Victor Kutor, says he will not step down over allegations of the GHS70,000 bus procurement scandal.
The Executive Council of the SRC in a letter to the embattled president who is under fire for corruption and underhand dealings to enrich himself in the bus purchase asked Wonder Kutor to step aside for investigations into the procurement of the vehicle to commence.
Mr. Kutor, however, in a counter letter questioned the constitutionality of the request.
He, in the letter, said he would not step down as the Executive Council has suggested.
Part of the statement reads, “I must emphasise that there is no constitutional basis as far as an SRC’s constitution is concerned that suggests that where an allegation is levelled against an executive member, that executive has to step down.”
The Spokesperson for Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia Dr Gideon Boako has sayst his boss’ silence on the controversial Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy) during the lecture on the economy was not deliberate.
According to him, E-levy is a government policy hence the Vice President has no option but to go with it.
“Whatever commentary anybody passed before such policy came to effect is immaterial. Whether you sat on the table, made your views known in support or in dissent, when the decision is taken it is a collective decision and what you say is immaterial.
“Mind you, you don’t come out from cabinet meetings and send out loud your opinion and push it out, it is not done anywhere. What is important is that when government takes a decision, all actors are bound by it whether you supported it or not,” he disclosed on TV3.
He continued “So it is not in the interest of the government or the Vice President himself to come out after cabinet has taken the decision to say that ‘I’m the one who championed the idea’, or to come out to say ‘when this was tabled I didn’t support it, are you not a team player?
Mr. Boako also stated that what Ghanaians should focus on should be accountability and what the tax will be used for.
“It is not done anywhere, is it is not ethical. So that is the principle. What is important now is that e-levy has been approved by the cabinet, and passed by parliament. Today, it is part of our tax handles, we are individuals and citizens, and we may have our own reactions towards paying tax and which particular tax is in question. Once it is approved, we are duty-bound and responsibility-bound as citizens to pay.”
The Spokesperson also noted that “We need to make sure we hold government accountable to ensure that the purpose of which the tax was introduced is achieved. I think that is where we need to focus now. If you listened to the President’s State of the Nation address after e-levy was passed, he didn’t talk so much about e-levy.
“The Finance Minister in his address after e-levy was passed didn’t talk so much about e-levy because it has been passed so I don’t see why the Vice President had to rather take time and go and delve into the matter after it has been passed.”
Ghanaian hiphop musician, Samuel Adu Frimpong, popularly known as Medikal, has responded to claims that he and Shatta are now a music group.
Since Shatta Wale and Medikal came out of prison, they have become the best of friends, doing music and even going on tours together. This has bred a lot of conversation on social media which suspects the two are now a music duo.
In an interview with Rev. Erskine on the Myd-Morning Radio Show on Y107.9FM, Medikal denied these claims, saying Shatta Wale is like his brother.
“We have a joint project together and Shatta is like my brother, my blood. We wanted to do something different and with the Ghanaian industry it has mostly been the individuals who drop albums, so we wanted to join forces and do something together, combine powers and bring something beautiful. We felt like we needed to do a tour for the project, so we can spread the message”.
He further debunked rumors that they were not booked for some of the shows.
According to Medikal, they were both booked for all the shows they performed at, hence, there was no case of one party dragging the other to perform with him.
“It was great. It’s always nice when I meet my fans and people who support my music. So, it was a vibe and it was beautiful. It was nice to be on tour with Shatta. We were having fun together”.
The President of the Students Representative Council (SRC) of the Ghana Law School has come under fire for what is described as corrupt practices to enrich himself at the expense of the students he swore to represent.
In a letter dated April 11, 2022, the Executive Committee of the School has directed the embattled President to step down as it takes steps to investigate issues regarding the purchase of a vehicle.
“On Wednesday 6th April 2022, the Executive Council of the SRC probed the President about his ownership of a car sold to the SRC bearing the chassis number 2T1BURHE0EC043574.
Part of the statement reads, “I must emphasise that there is no constitutional basis as far as an SRC’s constitution is concerned that suggests that where an allegation is levelled against an executive member, that executive has to step down.”
Background
The SRC President of the school had, among other things, been accused of buying a car for the SRC from his company, and another one for his personal use under questionable circumstances.
Mr. Wonder Victor Kutor is also said to be running an SRC-owned Mobile Money business with his company name and diverting proceeds from the business for his own personal use.
The Executive Council of the SRC queried the president but said they are not convinced with his answers, hence has constituted a committee to investigate the matter.
Pressure has since mounted on the SRC president to resign while investigations are done, but he is reported to have turned down such suggestions.
