Posts in category: Other News

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has requested the Christian community to dedicate Sunday’s church service to pray for peaceful elections as the nation heads to the polls tomorrow, Monday December 7.

A statement signed and issued by Pius Enam Hadzide, a Deputy Minister of Information on Saturday, said the request was in line with the President’s belief that despite all the necessary arrangements put in place, it’s the Lord that grants peaceful polls.

It said the President reaffirmed his belief that the battle is still the Lord’s.

More than 17 million voters will vote on Monday, December 7, 2020, to elect a President and 275 parliamentarians.

Source: GNA

The Electoral Commission (EC) has said it expects a near 100 per cent voter turnout in today’s special voting exercise.

“We expect a near 100 per cent turnout and are confident that the outcome will be peaceful, credible, transparent and orderly, God being our helper,” the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa, told the media in Accra yesterday.

Addressing the latest edition of the ‘Let the Citizens Know’ series, Mrs Mensa also released the final voters register for the 2020 general election, in which 17,027,641 people have been certified to take part in the polls.

All set

Declaring that all was set for today’s special voting, the EC Chairperson said polling officers had been recruited and trained, and that all materials had been distributed in sufficient quantities and biometric verification devices (BVDs) prepared and deployed.

“In total, 109,557 people, made up of security persons, media people and staff of the EC, applied to take part in the exercise in the 275 constituencies. It is instructive to note that this is the highest number the commission has recorded for special voting in its history,” she said.

Significantly, she said, this year, the EC provided the special voting list to representatives of the institutions whose staff applied to vote in the exercise.

It was, however, unfortunate that some of the applications received for special voting could not be considered as a result of their late arrival and the freezing of data after processing, she said.

Mrs Mensa urged the public to disregard information on social media that the EC had prevented the security agencies from registering.

“Every officer who applied on time and provided the correct ID card number was duly registered. Unfortunately, we rather had an issue with our media partners who have collaborated with us all this while. There were some discrepancies regarding the list submitted by the GJA. The soft copy of the list was different from the hard copy, which contained more applicants. Unfortunately, that was not made known to the EC’s team.

“As such, only the names in the soft copy reflected in the special voting list. The commission regrets this and wishes to assure the GJA, the NMC, and journalists in general of our support for their efforts. To mitigate this, the EC has instructed its field officials to give preferential treatment to media personnel who possess the accreditation cards of the commission,” the chairperson said.

Voters register

Giving a breakdown of the names in the final voters’ register, Mrs Mensa said 8,810,283 people, representing 51.74 per cent, were females, while 8,217,358, representing 48.26 per cent, were males.

It indicated that the Greater Accra Region had the highest number of voters: 3.53 million, followed by the Ashanti Region, which has about 3.012 million voters.

On the other hand, the North East and the Savanna regions were home to the lowest and the second-lowest number of voters, made up 289,529 and 298,404, respectively.

She said the EC had certified about 542 voters to vote through manual verification.

Missing names

Beyond the over 17 million names in the voters register, she said, 830 names were found to be missing, but they would now be allowed to vote after their names had been discovered through a thorough examination.

She said the affected voters were in 38,622 polling stations across the country

Mrs Mensa said the list would be published on the commission’s website for the public to access.

Publication of register

The EC Chairperson said the commission was enjoined by the Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) 127 to publish the certified copy of the final voters register in a manner determined by the commission.

Consequently, she said, it had elected to make the register available in two electronic formats to allow registered voters to “seamlessly check their details ahead of the elections.”

She emphasised that the final register had been uploaded onto the commission’s website for the general public to verify their names.

Mrs Mensa indicated that voters could also use the USSD *711*2020# to check their details on the electoral roll ahead of the polls, explaining that the usage was free of charge.

“The publication of the final voters register in these two electronic formats will enable voters to ascertain their polling station details to enable them to go through a seamless voting process on Election Day. We entreat persons who have issues with their registration to contact the nearest district offices of the EC across the country for immediate remedy,” she said.

The EC Chairperson said the final register showed that about 7,890 people had engaged in multiple registration, totalling 15,860.

Source: Graphic.com.gh

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Wednesday launched a fund-raising short code, *979#, to enable people to contribute towards the construction of the National Cathedral, an initiative of the clergy.

He described the idea of securing funds via unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), a global system for mobile communication to send and receive text messages of financial transactions, as laudable and deserving of applause.

“I am very grateful to all the men and women of God who have pioneered this enterprise and are making the project work, especially members of the National Cathedral Board of Trustees who have led the enterprise with great enthusiasm and commitment,” he said.

He also commended the clergy for their commitment to the project.

Determination

The President said he was firm in his determination to bring the project to fruition, adding: “I remain indifferent and impervious to it. I have no shame at all to state that I am a Christian in politics and, therefore, have no hesitation in supporting this cathedral project.”

He said he would meet with the members of the board of trustees and take a decision on a replacement for its Chairman, Rev. Dr Samuel Asante-Antwi, who has passed on.

Opposition

A member of the board responsible for fundraising, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, said just as Prophet Nehemiah in the Bible endured criticism and opposition in his quest to build a House of God, so also had the construction of the cathedral faced some opposition.

He said advocates for the construction of the cathedral would suffer from lack of cooperation, misrepresentation of issues and speculations.

“I am saying this to the trustees and to the dreamer of the project, President Akufo-Addo, and to all gathered here hearing the sound of my voice, that we must be brave, because there will be mockery and it is something we cannot avoid,” the Archbishop added.

Support

The Secretary to the board of trustees, Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng, made a case for public support for the project.

“President Akufo-Addo’s genuine heart’s desire to build God a House must motivate every Christian to support its construction,” he said.

Source: Graphic.com.gh

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) says the number of people who have not been wearing face masks as a preventive measure in the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has increased.

According to the GHS, the figure has increased to 82 percent in the last one month.

The Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye made this known at a press briefing in Accra on Wednesday morning [November 25, 2020].

He said in six major markets across the Greater Accra Region, over 90 percent of people do not wear face masks.

“The increasing cases early in October [was] because the protocol of application of masks was quite reduced. In terms of all the protocols, workplace issues were challenging and so we have actually had to intervene to ensure things are done.”

“We’ve done some survey last week [and] just a marginal increase, those who are not wearing is still very high about 82 percent of people are still not wearing masks, 7 percent are wearing, the rest 11 percent are wearing but not wearing them accurately. And so that is a far cry from the 44 percent that we had a couple of months ago.”

In terms of category of people who are not wearing masks, Dr Kuma Aboagye said head porters who were “doing very well in the last survey a few months ago, now 96 percent of our head porters are not wearing masks.”

For buyers, “only 66 percent are not wearing masks”, this, he said was an improvement over the last survey’s figure which showed that sellers were doing better than buyers.

He said they were currently doing another study to look at workplace arrangements to see if there has been some improvements because a lot of outbreaks in the last month has come from workplaces.

He said a lot of interventions have taken place with the deployment of 25 vehicles to assist in contract tracing, with 15 in Greater Accra and the rest going to other regions.

Additional testing centres are also being opened, one at Ridge. He said the Ga East testing centre should be ready in a few days time.

“We’ve also started some assessment of infirmaries in the school health system in anticipation of the reopening of schools in January 2021. That is something ongoing, as we prepare, how do we educate the children, how do we educate the primary school, how do we educate kindergartens on how to wear masks and how to adhere to protocols. These are all areas that we are looking at to ensure that we get ready before school reopens.”

Currently, the last one we are doing is we are conducting some lab quality assurance exercise to ensure that, we now have about 23 labs, we want to ensure that the standards are maintained and that, if they say you are negative, you are negative and if the lab say you are positive, you are positive.

Case count

Currently, Ghana has recorded a total of 51,225 cases since the outbreak of the disease in the country in March 2020.

A total of 50,127 have since been discharged.

The total number of active cases is now 775 with 323 deaths

The total number of tests is 583,545 as of now. The test per a million population is 19,451/million

Source: Graphic.com.gh

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday inaugurated the first phase of the Obetsebi-Lamptey Interchange in Accra, 11 months after he had cut the sod for work to begin.

The project, which was completed five months ahead of schedule, involved the construction of two (5 x 2 metre) 550-metre viaduct and ramps between the Graphic Road and the Dr Busia Highway (Kaneshie-Mallam Road).

There are also a box culvert across the Graphic Road and a storm drain up to the Ring Road West carriageway.

The storm drain, which will help address the flooding challenges experienced at the previous Obetsebi-Lamptey Circle, will be continued up to the Mpamprom Junction under Phase II of the project.

The project was executed by QGMI Construcciones E. Infraestructuras Globales S.L.U., with FAS Consult Ltd as the engineer’s representative, while the Department of Urban Roads (DUR) is the agency under the Ministry of Roads and Highways responsible for the project.

Phase two

Under Phase Two, which begins immediately, the third tier of the interchange, which will be on the Ring Road West (Awudome to the Central Mosque at Abbosey Okai), will be constructed.

Additional works to be undertaken include the widening of the Ring Road West (from Awudome Junction to the interchange) into a 2 x 3 dual carriageway and the improvement of the Awudome Road and the Nii Teiko Din Street.

Completion

President Akufo-Addo, who inaugurated the project as part of his two-day campaign tour of the Greater Accra Region, said the completion of the first phase would allow the contractor to commence work on Phase Two immediately.

He explained that the completion of Phase One was an indication of the seriousness the government attached to addressing the problem of congestion on the roads.

More projects

The President said currently, five interchange projects were ongoing in the country.

He named them as the Pokuase Interchange — the first four-tier interchange in West Africa — which is 85 per cent complete, sections of which would be opened to traffic this week; the Tamale Interchange — the first interchange in the northern part of the country — which is 54 per cent complete; the Takoradi PTC Roundabout Interchange — the first in the western part of the country; the Nungua Interchange and Phase One of the Tema Interchange — which is completed and being used, with work yet to start on the second phase.

“This is the first time in our nation’s history that more than five interchanges are being constructed within the first term of any government, so if there are any reasons to give Nana four more years to do more for, this is one of them,” President Akufo-Addo added.

He said the government had also undertaken critical road projects to improve urban mobility.

These, he said, included the completion of 1,000 asphalt overlay works throughout the country, the LEKMA road, which is 90 per cent complete, and the construction of the Tema Steel Works road, the first concrete road constructed by the government after the Accra-Tema Motorway, which was now about 90 per cent complete.

He explained that Kumasi roads and drainage extension projects, including the dualisation of the Lake Road and the lining of the Seaside road in Kumasi, were in progress.

The President said the Ministry of Roads and Highways, through the DUR, was reviewing proposals to address the challenges on the Kaneshie-Mallam Road.

“This is necessary to reduce the discomfort commuters go through at the Kaneshie Market area, the First Light Intersection and the Sakaman-Mallam section of the road,” he said.

Removing bottlenecks

The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwesi Amoako-Atta, said the construction of the interchange became necessary to eliminate one of the major bottlenecks on the Ring Road in Accra — congestion — and improve traffic flow at the intersection in four major roads, made up of the Graphic Road, the Kaneshie-Mallam Road, Ring Road West towards the Nkrumah Interchange and Ring Road West Extension towards Abbosey Okai.

He said all road works started from last year would come with covered drainage systems.

He added that there would also be the erection of an appropriate monument in memory of Emmanuel Odarkwei Obetsebi-Lamptey, one of the Big Six of Ghana’s independence struggle, after whom the interchange is named.

Source: Graphic.com.gh

The Electoral Commission (EC) has tasked Presiding Officers to make the necessary arrangements to ensure that vulnerable voters – the sick, aged, pregnant women, lactating mothers, and Persons With Disabilities do not join long queues at Polling Stations.

“All vulnerable voters must be given preferential treatment at the polling station, they should not be allowed to join long queues and voters with unidentifiable disabilities such as the deaf may be in the company of others who will prompt the Presiding Officer for priority to be given to them as well,” the EC stated.

The EC in its, “Election 2020 Manual – Guide to Voter,” available to the Ghana News Agency identified others for preferential treatment as persons with visual impairment; physically disabled; persons with hearing impairment, persons living with albinism, low syndrome and any other categories of disabilities that will be noticed at the center.

Mr Kwame Amoah, EC Greater Accra Regional Director in an interview with the GNA, explained that all polling stations would be located at places that are easily accessible to all voters.

He said Presiding Officers are under instructions to locate all polling stations at low-level areas in order to make voting easier for the vulnerable such as the sick, pregnant, aged, lactating mothers and Persons With Disabilities (PWD’s especially wheelchair users to access.”

“All polling stations must be located at low-level areas, existing polling stations that are on verandas, across gutters, or anywhere that will prevent free movement of voters must be relocated to a more accessible area,” he explained.

To ensure that people with visual impairment vote independently, Mr Amoah said the EC has made provision for tactile ballot jackets. “A tactile jacket is a cardboard folder with raised dots arranged numerically to represent the positions of candidates on the ballot paper.

“Besides each numerical arrangement is a corresponding window, which is big enough to accommodate the thumb for voting.”

The EC Greater Accra Regional Director explained that the tactile jacket is designed to easily identify the top with a notch. Users are also guided with the perforated edge of the ballot paper to identify the top as well.

Users independently slot the ballot paper into the tactile folder and with the help of the numerically arranged raised dots, select their preferred candidates and consequently vote in the window provided.

Two tactile jackets have been produced per polling station; one for the Presidential and the other for Parliamentary elections.

Source: GNA

He was appointed to lead the fight against corruption for seven years, but nearly three years after he had been sworn into office, the Special Prosecutor (SP), Mr Martin Alamisi Burns Kaiser Amidu, has resigned.

Mr Amidu cited what he described as “political interference in the independence of his office” as the main reason for his decision to resign.

Additionally, he said, his office was given inadequate staff who were mostly on secondment, a situation that made it nearly impossible for his outfit to effectively carry out its functions.

In a letter dated yesterday and addressed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mr Amidu said his position had become ‘untenable’, especially with regard to the corruption risk assessment he conducted on the Gold Royalties Monetisation Transaction arrangement, popularly referred to as the Agyapa Deal.

He alleged that the reaction he got from the Presidency on the corruption risk assessment was the final push that led to his resignation.

Alleged political interference

Mr Amidu accused President Akufo-Addo of trying to direct him on how to proceed with the corruption risk assessment the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) had conducted on the Agyapa Deal.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo had allegedly tried to convince him to take the response of the Finance Minister to the corruption risk assessment, which he refused, saying “that would have compromised my independence as the SP.”

Again, Mr Amidu said he refused to shelve the report after the President had allegedly told him to do so to enable him (the President) to “handle the matter.”

“It thus became abundantly clear to me that I cannot continue under your government as the SP in the performance of the functions of my office in preventing and fighting corruption and corruption-related offences.

“The 64-page analysis of corruption and anti-corruption assessment report disclosed several corruption and corruption-related offences in respect of which I intended to open full investigations as the SP. I cannot do that now after your political interference in the performance of the functions of the office for two weeks, from October 20 to November 1, this year,” the letter alleged.

Inadequate staff

Mr Amidu further stated in the letter that his resignation was also premised on the limited number of staff sent to his outfit.

“The compulsion to use a limited number of seconded staff in a three-bedroom and boys’ quarters accommodation undermined the achievement of the objects of the office and my undertaking on oath before Parliament.

“One cannot seriously continue to prevent and fight corruption by depending on seconded staff of a two-year duration who are looking forward to and/or over their shoulders to returning to their main employers, who consequently may have more influence over them than the SP under whom they are supposed to work,” it added.

Was it expected?

Mr Amidu was sworn into office by President Akufo-Addo on February 23, 2018, after he had been duly vetted and approved by Parliament.

That followed the passage of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) Act, 2017 (Act 959), which gave the OSP investigative and prosecutorial powers to fight, prevent and prosecute acts of corruption and corruption-related offences.

Per Act 959, the SP is supposed to hold office for a seven-year non-renewable term.

Amidu’s appointment was heralded as a major boost in the fight against corruption.

The setting up of the OSP was one of the key campaign promises made by then candidate Akufo-Addo ahead of his electoral victory in 2016 and it is aimed at tackling corruption much more vigorously.

After all, it was Mr Amidu, popularly known as ‘Citizen Vigilante’, who had risked his political career with his seemingly anti-corruption stance.

It was also the same Mr Amidu who, singlehandedly, fought all the way to the Supreme Court to have the state get back the GH¢51.2 million judgement debt that was unconstitutionally paid to the businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome.

After he had assumed office as the SP, he went into the background, ostensibly doing his work to fight corruption.

He soon faded from the public scene, with many complaining that they could not feel his presence, while others even accused him of not doing enough to fight corruption.

Mr Amidu resorted to issuing statements, complaining about the lack of tools and staff to effectively discharge his duties.

He went into oblivion but resurfaced in November this year with a bang with the release of his corruption risk assessment on the Agyapa Deal.

Signs of his resignation were clearly on the wall as he continued to barrage the deal with frequent responses to statements released by the government about the deal after his assessment was made public.

Brouhaha over his appointment

Mr Amidu’s appointment had not been smooth sailing but fraught with controversies.

A notable one was the legal action at the Supreme Court challenging his eligibility to be the SP on the basis of his age.

The suit was filed by Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, a former Deputy Attorney-General and National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Bolgatanga East, who argued that Mr Amidu was 66 years at the time he was appointed and, therefore, constitutionally barred from holding any public office, such as the SP.

However, in May this year, the Supreme Court, in a 5-2 majority decision, dismissed the suit.

The apex court held that Mr Amidu was eligible to be the SP because his office could not be equated to the Public Service, which is caught by the retirement age of 60, as prescribed under articles 190, 195 and 199 of the 1992 Constitution.

More About Martin Amidu

Mr Amidu was the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice from January 2011 to January 2012 under the late President John Evans Atta Mills.

A member of the NDC, he had also served as the Deputy Attorney-General for about the last four years of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government.

After civilian rule was established in the Fourth Republic in January 1993, he continued to serve in the government of Jerry John Rawlings as Deputy Attorney-General. That he did for both terms, lasting eight years, until January 2001.

In the December 2000 presidential election, he partnered Prof. Mills as running mate, losing to Mr John Agyekum Kufuor that year.

In January 2010, following a Cabinet reshuffle, President Mills replaced Mr Cletus Avoka with Mr  Amidu as the Minister for the Interior.

Following the second major Cabinet reshuffle, Mr Amidu became the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice.

He was, however, relieved of his post on Thursday, January 19, 2012 by President Mills under circumstances described by Presidential aides as “his misconduct” at a meeting chaired by the President at the Osu Castle on January 18, 2012.

Source: Graphic.com.gh

Drugmaker Pfizer said Monday an early look at data from its coronavirus vaccine shows it is more than 90% effective — a much better than expected efficacy if the trend continues.

The so-called interim analysis looked at the first 94 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among the more than 43,000 volunteers who got either two doses of the vaccine or a placebo. It found that fewer than 10% of infections were in participants who had been given the vaccine. More than 90% of the cases were in people who had been given a placebo.

Pfizer said that the vaccine provided protection seven days after the second dose and 28 days after the initial dose of the vaccine.

The final goal of the trial is to reach 164 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection.

In a news release, the pharmaceutical giant said it plans to seek emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration soon after volunteers have been monitored for two months after getting their second dose of vaccine, as requested by the FDA.

Pfizer said it anticipated reaching that marker by the third week of November.

The Phase 3 trial of the Pfizer vaccine, made with German partner BioNTech, has enrolled 43,538 participants since July 27.

As of Sunday, 38,955 of the volunteers have received a second dose of the vaccine. The company says 42% of international trial sites and 30% of US trial sites involve volunteers of racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

“With today’s news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “We look forward to sharing additional efficacy and safety data generated from thousands of participants in the coming weeks.”

Pfizer says it has added a secondary endpoint to its study. It will evaluate whether the vaccines protect people against severe Covid-19 disease and whether the vaccine can provide long-term protection against Covid-19 disease, even in patients who have been infected before.

The FDA has said it would expect at least 50% efficacy from any coronavirus vaccine.

Source: CNN