Demolition At Kwabenya - Atomic Boss, 36 Others Arrested

THE Director-General of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), Professor Edward Akaho, and 36 security men of the commission are in the grip of the police for allegedly causing unlawful damage to the property of a construction firm, Anaina International Company Limited, at Kwabenya in Accra.

Prof Akaho is alleged to have instructed the security men to set ablaze two bulldozers, an office apartment, 15 laptops and three polytanks belonging to the company over a parcel of land being claimed by the two parties.

Other items destroyed in the blaze were office furniture, a vehicle, a temporary dormitory housing workers of the company, air conditioners and personal effects running into thousands of Ghana cedis.

According to Corporal Bright Danso of the Public Relations Office of the Greater Accra Regional Police, the arrest followed a distress call to the police by some residents and developers at Kwabenya early yesterday on the activities of the security men assigned by the GAEC Director-General.

He said policemen detailed to the scene found machetes and containers suspected to have been used to carry petrol to burn the equipment and other property.

He said the police would arraign all the suspects in court as soon investigations were completed into the incident.

The commission recently vowed not to compromise Ghana’s nuclear safety and security by ensuring that illegal structures on its lands were demolished.

The stance of the commission follows the siting of the proposed International Business District being put up by Anaina International Company on a 163-acre land said to be the property of the commission.

According to officials of GAEC, the project, being undertaken by some foreign investors, violated Ghana’s nuclear safety regime, particularly when plans were far advanced for the construction of a Nuclear Power Research Institute and other nuclear-related facilities on the said land.

They said the business district project, if carried out, could pose serious problems for emergency evacuation in the event of any nuclear accident.

In that light, GAEC recently pulled down some illegal structures which officials said might put the country’s nuclear safety at risk.

The Communications Director of Anaina International, Mr Kwabena Asante, who described the incident as unfortunate, expressed the hope that the police would bring the perpetrators of the action to book.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Jan 24, 2012

Youth must use votes to secure future - Ms Gbowee

A NOBEL Peace Laurette, Ms Leymah Gbowee, has challenged Ghanaian youth to use their votes to negotiate their future rather than accept handouts that tends to manipulate their conscience to violent conducts.

She similarly charged politicians and political parties not to limit the energies in young people for foot-soldier purposes.

“Do not follow blindly, rather ask questions and push for debates as you are major stakeholders who are often used as tools in gaining political power”, she advised.

According to her, the issue of peaceful elections were not a theoretical ones, but one that needed action plans to be achieved appropriately.

Ms Gbowee was speaking at a youth forum organised by the National Youth Authority (NYA), on the theme, “Peaceful elections 2012: the youth and the way forward”.

The programme, a curtain raiser for a series of nationwide engagement with the youth by the authority was meant to sensitise and provide information on the maintenence of peace before, during and after the December general elections.

She indicated that failing government structures across the African continent had seen the youth’s inability to create opportunities for themselves, thereby silently transiting them into foot-soldiers for the purposes of spearheading severe confrontations.

“Stories in newspapers and the airwaves in Ghana today clearly points in that direction”, she stressed.

According to her, although Ghana had become a model of democracy in Africa, economic and unemployment issues continue to plague its economy and these factors, she said, were a global phenomenon.

“Throwing stones for politicians would worsen your already impoverished situation and giving the politician who has all the resources at his disposal the opportunity to flee to a more developed country for his comfort”, Ms Gbowee told the gathering of young people who attended the programme.

“If you want to throw stones, follow me to Liberia for the repercussions of such actions”, she said.

While calling on young people not to allow the few minority seeking power at all cost to determine the trend of their lives through violent conducts, Ms Gbowee said that, “the power of life and death lies in their hands, since they were the biggest stakeholders in electoral decisions that defines true democracies”.

The Executive Secretary of the National Media Commission (NMC), Mr George Sarpong, said that there was the need for Ghanaians to reflect on the despair of Liberia from the cycle of peace and violence that led to a total destruction of that country.

He indicated that single electoral decision and the youth’s failure to be instigated with violent conducts by those seeking political offices at all cost would be a test case as December polls approaches.

Earlier in her welcome address, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NYA, Ms Sedina Tamakloe Attionu said the forum had become necessary owing to the fact that the youth form the masses in the elections.

She stated that whereas political parties have a right, there was the need to equip the youth with relevant skills and tools that would allow them to resist attempts of manipulation and determinants of political trends in their communities.

Ms Attionu also announced that the forum would be replicated in all regional and district capitals nationwide in an attempt to lessen rising tensions associated with elections and expressed the hope that stakeholders and religious bodies would embrace the concept of peace building before, during and after the elections.

The Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Lauretta Vivian Lamptey, who chaired the programme commended the NYA for the initiative saying the youth ought to be the main focal point of thought in stabilising democracy.

Present at the ceremony were officials of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Deputy Minister for Women’s and Children’s Affairs, Ms Hawawu Boya Boriga, who cautioned politicians and individuals not to hide behind politics to settle individual, religious or political scores.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Sat Jan 7, 2012

Govt pays GHc642m in judgement debt

THE government, between 2001 and 2011, incurred GH¢624 million as judgement debts, a Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said.

Out of the amount, GH¢117 million was paid in 2009, GH¢276 million in 2010 and GH¢231 million in 2011.

While some of the payments were tortious claims resulting from molestations by members of the security agencies, others were in respect of wrongful dismissal of government employees, compensation in respect of accidents caused by some public officials, as well as wrongful demolition of private properties.

Breach of contracts constituted majority of the payment made during the period under review.

Eighty-six institutions and individuals benefited from such payments in 2010 alone.

Among them were Balkan Energy Limited (GH¢170,726), CP Construction (GH¢18,012,982), African Automobile Limited (GH¢2,500,000), MS Rockshell International (GH¢7,140,500); Latex Foam Limited (GH¢133,165), Novotec Limited (GH¢573,058) and Nene Yobo Asutsuare Sugar Factory (GH¢2,525,600).

Dr Seth Twum, Nana Owusu Akyia Prempeh II, Kojo Boakye Kutin, Kojo Hodare-Okae and Alfred Agbesi Woyome are among the individual beneficiaries.

Similar payments were also made to the National Procurement Agency for settlement agreement and Avnash Industries Limited for the confiscation of the company’s assets in 2004.

The payment of all judgement debts by the government has been captured in the Auditor-General’s 2010 Report on Public Accounts submitted to Parliament by the Auditor-General.

Mr Ablakwa told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the government, in 2010 alone, made payments to some 86 beneficiary individuals and organisations, while negotiations were still underway to clear outstanding arrears.

He said the payments so far made, including that of Mr Woyome, were as a result of the former adminstration’s failure to honour contractual obligations.

According to him, payments made in September this year, with outstanding arrears of about GH¢560 million (which converts to over US$380 million) enumerated recently by the Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, in Parliament, would have been channelled into poverty alleviation ventures.

“The whole nation would have been spared the uproar that payment generated if past government officials had acted in a meticulous manner,” Mr Ablakwa said.

The Auditor-General’s Report indicated that the GH¢276 million judgment debt, representing 11 per cent of total government administrative expenditure, could have been avoided if public officials had taken precautionary measures in performing their official duties.

The report similarly indicated that the non-enforcement of penalty clauses by the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) also emboldened oil marketing companies (OMCs) to unduely withhold state funds, resulting in some huge chunk of revenue loss to the state.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Fri Dec 30, 2011