The Ranking Member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, has said that Ghana will face another financial sector collapse if the government goes through with its Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
According to him, the government, through its DDEP, is seeking to transfer its debt problem to individuals and private organisations including banks, which will lead to them not being able to pay their depositors and their eventual collapse.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews on Monday, January 16, 2023, which was monitored by GhanaWeb, Ato Forson added that at least five banks are on the brink of collapse because of the economic challenges in the country.
“… at the end of the debt restructuring, the financial sector will have to collapse again. I am already seeing about five banks (that are) already going to shake because of what is going to happen to them if we allow it (the DDEP) to go (through).
“So, do we really want to transfer the burden where the state is insolvent to the private sector and what will be the repercussions going forward?” we quizzed.
Dr Ato Forson, the Member of Parliament for Ajumako Enyan Esiam, therefore urged the government to hold on to its DDEP and make the necessary consultations before going on with it.
“That is why we are saying that it is for you and I to sit down and jaw-jaw for us to find a proper mix to resolve (the current challenges),” he said.
He added that should the government decide to force the debt restructuring programme on Ghanaians, the entire middle class in the country will also be whipped out.
Meanwhile, the invitation to the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme has been extended for the third time to January 31, 2023.
This comes after the second extension by the Finance Ministry expired on January 16, 2023.
The decision to include individual bondholders was necessitated after the government was forced by labour unions to abandon plans to include pensions in the debt exchange programme which was first announced in December 2022.
The controversies surrounding the National Cathedral project do not seem to be ending anytime soon.
This is because more allegations are being made against the handlers of the project.
The latest person to add to these issues is the founder and presiding Bishop of the Lighthouse Group of Churches, Bishop Dag Heward-Mills.
According to the respected preacher, even though he was a trustee and attended all meetings until his resignation, he was not involved nor privy to discussions on the financial and technical issues concerning the project.
Amongst other issues of concern to him, the seasoned Bible teacher said weighty issues and decisions were taken by persons other than the Board of Trustees.
The seasoned Bible scholar in his resignation letter issued in August 2022, and sighted by Citi FM, added that all of his suggestions and contributions were “trivialised and set aside.”
According to him, these reasons compelled him to resign from the board even though he supports the building of the Cathedral.
“I have been a reachable and available trustee and attended every single meeting of trustees since the pandemic began, in person and by zoom, and the records will show that.
If I say that I, as a trustee, do not know many of the financial and technical issues concerning the Cathedral, it means the discussions about the National Cathedral were held by some people outside the trustees’ meeting or perhaps in a forum that I was not present or invited to.”
“On the one hand, the National Cathedral is said to be a Government of Ghana project, with the government taking financial decisions. Yet, on another hand, at meetings, it is implied that the trustees have taken or participated in taking some decisions.”
The National Cathedral Project has been one of the controversial public issues, since the project was commissioned.
Apart from the questions of accountability repeatedly raised by the Minority in Parliament, there have also been concerns about the relevance of the project, in the face of the country’s current economic crisis.
There have also been conflict of interest including possession of multiple identities among other suspicious dealings allegations against the Secretary of the National Cathedral Board of Trustees, Rev. Victor Kusi-Boateng, who doubles as the founder of Power Chapel Worldwide.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of the National Cathedral of Ghana, Dr. Paul Opoku Mensah has dismissed allegations.
He explained that the said amount which was paid on September 8, 2021, was a loan from a board member whose name he fell short of mentioning.
He stressed that the amount was requested from the state in August 2021 to be used to pay the contractors but was delayed due to some processes at the Controller and Accountant General’s Department.
Hence, the board member offered to loan the money through his company, JNS Talent Centre Limited to be paid later without any interest.
According to him, there is no illegal payment as suggested by Okudzeto Ablakwa and there are documentations which have been submitted to Parliament to prove his explanations.
He advised the North Tongu MP and other critics of the project to seek clarification from the National Cathedral Secretariat before raising accusations.
There is currently a heavy security presence in Buipe in the Savanna Region following some disturbances in the area.
The military and police presence comes after some persons stormed the police station and the palace of the Buipewura to demand the release of eight people who were arrested.
During the protest, an individual was injured when police fired a warning shot to disperse the protestors.
He has however taken to the hospital for treatment.
According to citinews.com, eight persons were arrested for the alleged involvement in razing down some houses belonging to some Fulanis in protest against the enskinment of a Fulani as a chief of Mande.
The Secretary of Buipewura Jinapor II, Neripewura Abubakari Kitson Panfia, said measures have been put in place to restore calm.
The Minority NDC Caucus in Parliament is set to hold nationwide roadshows to promote a better understanding of the Debt Exchange Programme.
The Programme is a government initiative seeking to classify domestic bonds into four categories to create fiscal space as part of preparations to qualify Ghana for an International Monetary Fund facility.
Among other things, the roadshows would rally Ghanaians to demand a more favorable resolution to the alleged unprecedented economic crisis Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia-led Economic Management team has plunged the country into.
Addressing a press conference in Parliament, in Accra on Monday, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority Leader, said: “The inclusion of individual bondholders in the Domestic Debt Exchange is the biggest transfer of funds from the pockets of Ghanaians to the government.”
“ This will leave affected persons, mainly the middle class, improvised while worsening the plight of the poor. This must immediately be stopped.”
“We wish to take this opportunity to indicate our intention to embark on nationwide roadshows to foster a deeper understanding of this matter and rally Ghanaians to demand a more favorable resolution of the economic crisis….”
Mr Iddrisu, the Member of Parliament for Tamale South, called on President Akufo-Addo to suspend the ongoing Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
He, therefore, urged the President to engage in more comprehensive consultations on the matter with all stakeholders and the Ghanaian people.
Meanwhile, the Government on Monday announced an extension of the Debt Exchange Programme to Tuesday, January 31, 2023.
The Bank of Ghana has said it cannot solve the country’s exchange rate problems.
Governor of the bank, Ernest Addison who appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, said the exchange rate, which is currently GH¢13 to a dollar, “reflects the movement on a day-to-day basis.
“If there is additional demand for cedis, the currency will be restricted, the central bank cannot fix the exchange rate”, he noted, adding: “It depends on what transactions have taken place”, such as “payments to contractors.”
“Typically, that kind of payment can move the exchange rate because some of them immediately convert into foreign exchange. So, the exchange, really, reflects a lot of day-to-day pressures in the economy.”
Dr. Addison also noted that the gold-for-oil programme will shore up the cedi’s strength.
According to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Ghana took delivery of 40,000 metric tonnes of oil from the United Arab Emirates through the barter programme on Sunday, 15 January 2023.
Founder and Leader of the Prophetic Hill Chapel, Prophet Nigel Gaisie,has stated that his prophecy about John Dramani Mahama’s re-election was spiritually tampered.
Nigel Gaisie claims that it is not uncommon for evil spirits to hijack prophecies in the spiritual realm but his prophecy was instructed by God so it shall come to pass.
“Prophecies can be hijacked. We can prophesy and it can be hijacked by spiritual powers or evil men, but that does not mean that the prophecy won’t come to pass. With time it will surely come to pass. So, as we’re living let’s pray for life all the prophecies will come to pass. The last election it was clear, where I am sitting as a prophet of God it went well for the NDC members. Anybody who doesn’t wants to be biased will tell you the truth. Even the NPP members know that I’m a prophet and what I said came to pass.
“So, the prophecy was hijacked. And it is still in the womb of time waiting to manifest and if God permits 2024 it will manifest. “I have a mandate from God to make sure that the prophecy comes to pass. “I was in Israel praying and God said I should come and tell Ghanaians this, it will amaze you that the former president I don’t even call him, and we don’t talk,” he said in an interview with Onua TV.
Prophet Nigel Gaisie during the 31-night watch service released a number of prophecies that he claims are bound to happen in 2023.
Gaisie outlined prophecies that relate to a nation he claimed was called ‘The Republic of Yempɛ Nokware’ – a nation that bears similarities with Ghana.
He issued a disclaimer at the beginning of his prophecy session that his words were of the spiritual and not the physical world.
“I want to say this is a disclaimer, I am in the spirit and I am in the church behind the pulpit. I am not talking in my human sense; I am talking as a spiritual person.
“The intention is not to cause fear and panic, prophecies are utterances led by the spirit of God through vision, trans and dreams and our five senses,” he added.
He mentioned three scriptures that backed his position on prophecies being divine and continued: “On the strength of these scriptures, I repeat again, I am not prophesying to the nation and people of Ghana.
“If you are in Ghana, you can respectfully log off or switch off your TV, I am prophesying to the Republic of Yempɛ Nokware.”
Nana Obiri Boahen, the former Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has expressed his displeasure with President Akufo-Addo’s choice of Ken Ofori-Atta as caretaker Minister of Trade and Industry.
Nana Obiri Boahen asserted that the president erred in appointing Ken Ofori-Atta to the trade and industry ministry in place of Alan Kyerematen. He stated that while legally and constitutionally, the president’s choice was correct, it was wrong politically and morally.
Speaking in an interview on Wontumi TV, he added that it confuses him that the president’s advisors sat unconcerned for such a decision to be taken given that the finance minister was already experiencing backlash from a section of the public.
“With all due respect and with all humility to the president, that decision for the president to allow Ken Ofori Atta to take charge was wrong. Constitutionally the president was right, legally the president was right, but politically it was wrong and morally it was wrong. Constitutionally, if a cabinet minister is not around, a cabinet minister must replace him.
“Legally he is also right but politically it was dangerous and incorrect. That discretion was not well exercised. The minister of finance is facing backslash and his own MPs are calling for his sacking, so appointing such a person will cause confusion.
“Morally in terms of politics, it is sending a wrong signal, so I’m happy that he has been changed. But I’m surprised that the advisors of the president couldn’t prompt him,” he said.
He continued by expressing his happiness at Abu Jinapor’s appointment as the new caretaker minister at the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Abu Jinapor has replaced Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, who was given stewardship of the trades ministry a few days ago after the resignation of Alan Kyerematen.
A statement which was issued by the Director of Communication at the Office of the President, Eugene Arhin, indicated that the appointment of Abu Jinapor as caretaker trade minister will take effect from Monday, January 16, 2023.
The Lands Commissions has served notice to the public that it will from January 17th, 2023 begin a process to recover encroached state lands at Amrahia, Mpehuasem and Nungua (Borteyman) in the Greater Accra Region.
In a statement signed by its executive secretary and issued on Monday, January 16, 2023, the Lands Commission disclosed that it will embark on a demolition exercise in those areas with the aim of recovering all state lands which have been acquired illegally by persons or groups in the aforementioned areas.
According to the statement, the demolition exercise which will be done in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service is in line with section 236 of the Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036),
The commission announced that it is taking this step following reports of “contestation encroachments on state lands within Amrahia, Mpehuasem and Nungua.”
Read the full statement below
PRESS RELEASE
16TH JANUARY,2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ALL MEDIA HOUSES
DEMOLITION EXERCISE AT AMRAHIA, MPEHUASEM AND NUNGUA (BORTEYMAN), STATE ENCROACHED LANDS.
The Government of Ghana, through the Lands Commission administers all state –acquired and vested lands in the country.
The Lands Commission has received a number of reports with great contestation, of encroachments on state lands within Amrahia, Mpehuasem and Nungua (Borteyman) in Accra by unknown armed men. The illegality started during the festive season in December,2022 and continues to occur. These parcels under threat are parts of Government acquisitions with compensations paid;
1. State Lands (Kweiman-Amrahia – Site for Modern Diary Farm) Instrument, 1970 (E.I.47) with approximate area of 1,381.995 acres.
2. State Lands – (Accra-Mpehuasem – Site for Accra Training College) Instrument, 2009 (E. I. 16) with approximate area of 111.25 acres.
3. State Lands – (Accra-Nungua – Site for Site for Livestock Farm) Instrument, 1940 (Certificate of Title 214/40) with approximate area of 2,570.05 acres. In all the acquisitions above, on the goodwill of Government, some portions of the sites have been released to the pre-acquisition owners.
Following a reconnaissance inspection of sites in Borteyman, Amanhria and Mphehuasem, the joint team of Lands Administrators and Police Officers agreed on the urgency of a more extensive exercise to recover and protect all the encroached portions including demolishing of unauthorised structures.
The Commission with the assistance of the Ghana Police Service officially starts the exercise on 17th January, 2023 to recover and protect such sites and other state-acquired areas; per section 236 of the Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036),
It is expected the public would offer maximum support to the Commisssion as it undertakes this mandate.
Some concerned youth in the Savannah Region are demanding the arrest of the Public Relations Officer of the Gonjaland Youth Association, Mufti Borjinkper.
Their demand comes after the PRO was captured in a video issuing an ultimatum to the police to release some individuals arrested for alleged arson on the houses of Fulani settlers.
According to the youth, it has become necessary for the police to arrest Mufti over his constant fomenting of trouble which is inimical to the peace and security of Gonjaland.
More so, the youth added that the PRO must be brought to order for issuing a threat against the Ghana Police Service.
“The Savannah Regional security command must bring Mufti to order. It is unfortunate that the Regional Coordinating Council sits unconcerned whilst their PRO keeps threatening and fomenting trouble in the Region. “This gentleman has had cause to issue threats severally on video and yet nothing has been done to him. This is Mufti threatening the very security of the state. Calling on the youth to attack the police station is a heinous crime that must be condemned,” a member of the group said.
In addition to their demands, the youth are asking the Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare to intervene in the security issues of the area to ensure peace and order.
“Is the IGP Mr Dampare afraid of Mufti or what? Is Mufti bigger and mightier than the state? How can an individual give the police a one-hour ultimatum to release suspects engaged in arson or else they will attack the police station?
“Where was Mufti when the hoodlums were engaged in that barbaric act of burning people’s houses? Is Mufti above law?” another member of the group added.
Following the attack on Fulanis and the subsequent burning of some houses, the police arrested multiple suspects in connection with the crime.
However, the PRO of the Gonja Youth Association is said to have issued threats to the police asking for the release of the suspects. He is said to have warned of an attack on the police if the suspects were not released in a given time.
Things got a bit heated between the Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh and broadcaster Johnnie Hughes during a social media debate over the censure motion against Ken Ofori-Atta and the ongoing Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
Annoh-Dompreh who is the Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri had earlier sent a caution to the Finance Ministry to review its decision to include individual bondholders in the DDEP.
“The Finance Minister (Ministry) must as a matter of urgency review ASAP its decision and resolution on individual bondholders. I don’t agree with them and I think it’s unfair and untenable!” he tweeted.
His tweet courted the attention of Johnnie Hughes who reminded the lawmaker that the situation could have been avoided if the majority caucus participated in the voting on the recommendations by the committee that probed the censure motion against Ken Ofori-Atta late last year.
“But Chief Whip @FAnnohDompreh, you and your colleagues had the chance to save us all through a simple secret ballot in Parliament after that Appiah-Kubi led presser asking for the head of KOA. What happened? Did you fail the people? Who whipped who in line?” he quizzed.
But Annoh-Dompreh exhorted Johnnie Hughes’ mind to the fact that his post is only relative to the issue of the individual bondholders and not nothing more.
“I am concerned about a specific matter!.. Don’t get it wrong!”, he tweeted in reply.
Johnnie Hughes maintained his course of reasoning and posed another question to Annoh-Dompreh “please did you fail the people? Who whipped who in line?”.
At this point Annoh-Dompreh gave a response considered harsh by the journalist.
“I am not ready for your ‘street’ politics!.. We have a matter to deal with! Seek to understand who I am and stop this! I am not interested in your arguments. As far as I am concerned, Ken has erred this time, and it must be corrected,” he retorted.
It created some banter that went on for some time until the two men called a truce.
Annoh-Dompreh has not hidden his aversion to the decision by the Ministry of Finance to include individual bondholders in the DDEP.
He believes that there could be dire repercussions on the middle class and the financial sector if the plans outlined by the finance ministry are adopted.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has extended the deadline for the DDEP with a promise to engage extensively with stakeholders.
This would be the third extension since the programme was launched on December 5, 2022.
In a tweet sighted by GhanaWeb Business, the Ministry of Finance noted that the extension was due to pending further stakeholder engagements with institutional and individual investors who were recently invited to join the debt exchange programme.
“Building consensus is key to a successful economic recovery for Ghana,” a tweet from the Finance Minister’s office said.
Ghana’s onshore sedimentary basin (Voltaian basin) is being surveyed for potential hydrocarbon reserves, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has said.
CEO of GNPC Opoku Awheneeh Danquah disclosed this at the 2023 Ghana Oil and Gas Roadshow on January 12, 2023, in London.
“In furtherance of our mandate of ‘leading sustainable exploration,’ GNPC has obtained Reconnaissance licences to explore our onshore and offshore basins.
“GNPC is currently exploring the hydrocarbon prospectivity of Ghana’s onshore sedimentary basin (Voltaian basin) under a Reconnaissance license through a mix of geophysical, geological and geochemical techniques and is looking to crown our efforts by drilling a well in Q4 2023,” he said.
Mr Danquah further mentioned that his outfit is constantly exploring opportunities to leverage its technical competence and financial strength in unlocking much needed hydrocarbon potential of our sedimentary basins.
In line with this, he disclosed that over the next two years, GNPC will acquire, process and interpret 3D seismic over the block to evaluate hydrocarbon potential and drill one (1) well.
About GNPC
GNPC is the state agency responsible for the exploration, licensing, and distribution of petroleum-related activities in Ghana.
It was established in 1983 by PNDC Law 64, to support the government’s objective of providing adequate and reliable supply of petroleum products and reducing the country’s dependence on crude oil imports, through the development of the country’s own petroleum resources.
In the early 2000’s, GNPC’s focus was amended to solely operate within the upstream energy sector, relinquishing previous downstream operations.
Prior to the establishment of Petroleum Commission Ghana in 2011, GNPC in addition to our core mandate played pseudo-regulatory roles in assisting the Ministry of Energy in chartering the path to commercial discoveries in Ghana.
Subsequently, GNPC has transformed into a fully commercial state-owned entity with the strategic objective of leading the sustainable exploration, development, production and disposal of the petroleum resources of Ghana, by leveraging the right mix of domestic and foreign investments in partnership with the people of Ghana.
GNPC’s role is to ensure the efficient supply of natural gas from our oil and gas fields to Ghana National Gas Company to meet Ghana’s increasing energy needs by efficiently negotiating gas sales from our producing fields.
As a partner in all Petroleum licenses, GNPC has developed diverse competencies across the entire value chain to support partners in the execution of agreed Work Programs.
The highest paid pensioner in Ghana will start receiving GH₵169,725.89 per month beginning this year, according to the Chief Actuary of the Social Security and National Insurance Scheme (SSNIT), Joseph Poku.
This sum, according to Mr Poku, is expected to go up next year. This represents a 19.05% increase from the previous GH₵142,564.97 received by the highest paid pensioner in 2022.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Friday, January 13, 2023, Mr Poku said the lowest paid pensioner, on the other hand, will receive GH₵430.58, an increase of 43.53%.
He said a redistribution mechanism had to be implemented to cushion low-pension earners.
“The indexation rate for 2023 is 25%, which represents a 150% increase over the previous year’s indexation rate, which was 10%… Having determined this rate, we don’t want to apply it across the board because some people are earning far higher than the others, so we need to take into account those who are low pension earners, and this is what enabled us to introduce the mechanism called redistribution,” Mr. Poku announced.
In light of this, the lowest-earning pensioner, who received GH₵300 last year, will now receive GH₵430 and some pesewas, and the highest-earning pensioner will now receive GH₵169,725.89 per month starting in January 2023, according to Mr. Poku.
As part of the solidarity principle of social security, SSNIT applies the redistribution method to its indexation rate in order to cushion members with low pensions.
According to Mr Poku, the pension scheme will pay beneficiaries GH₵5 billion this year.
Tariffs for utilities will be increased beginning February 1, 2023.
This was announced by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) on Monday, January 16, 2023, despite admitting the present economic challenges.
While the end-user tariff for electricity has been increased by 29.96 percent, that of water has also seen an upward adjustment by 8.3 percent following the conclusion of the PURC’s regulatory processes for quarterly adjustments.
“The PURC is equally mindful of the current difficult economic circumstances but notes that the potential for outages would be catastrophic for Ghana and has to be avoided. The PURC, therefore, sought to balance prevention of extended power outages and its deleterious implications on jobs and livelihoods with minimizing the impact of rate increases on consumers”.
“The Commission, therefore, decided to increase the average end-user tariff for electricity by 29.96% across the board for all consumer groups (Table i). The average end-user tariff for water has also been increased by 8.3% (Table 2). The Commission, however, approved varying rate adjustments including some reductions for selected industrial and commercial consumers as part of the ongoing restructuring of the existing water rate structure”, the statement added.
Justification
For the end-user electricity tariffs payable by consumers, the Commission considered four key factors in arriving at its decision.
These were the Ghana Cedi/US Dollar exchange rate, inflation, generation mix and the weighted average cost of natural gas.
“Since the announcement of the major tariff in August 2022, these key variables underlying the rate setting have changed significantly. For example, the weighted average Ghana Cedi/Dollar exchange rate used for the major tariff review was GHS 7.5165 to the US Dollar. Since then, we have witnessed the depreciation of life Cedi against the US Dollar and other major currencies. The projected weighted average Ghana Cedi US Dollar exchange rate used in First Quarter 2023 Tariff Analysis is GHS10.5421/USD”, PURC stressed.
Additionally, the weighted average inflation figure used for the major tariff has seen a four-fold increase.
Together with exchange rate movements, this has negatively affected the ability of the utilities to purchase critical inputs required for their operations.
The Commission used a projected inflation rate of 42.63% in its tariff analysis for the First Quarter of 2023.
“The combined effect of the Cedi/US Dollar exchange rate, inflation and WACOG is that the utility companies are significantly under-recovering and require an upward adjustment of their tariffs in order to keep the lights on and water flowing”, the statement added.
The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) has announced the opening of applications for the 2022–2023 academic year.
The Students Loan Portal will be accessible to tertiary students all over the nation via the organisation’s website or by downloading the Students Loan App.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), Nana Kwaku Agyei Yeboah,disclosed in a media engagement on Friday, January 13, 2023, that the introduction of the “No Guarantor Policy’ has granted access to double the number of applicants in the past year as compared to the “32,744 students who benefited last year.”
According to him, “it is expected that over 70,000 new applicants will access the loan for the 2022-2023 academic year… due to measures put in place to reach out to thousands of applicants.”
The expected increase is due to the introduction of the ‘No Guarantor Policy’ which has made it easier for applicants to apply for the loans since they no longer need guarantors.
Among the measures he mentioned were intensifying public education and doubling the number of access points in the country to raise awareness of the Trust’s activities nationwide.
He added that “there are currently 32,744 beneficiaries on the Student Loan Program from 110 tertiary institutions across the country. In the last academic year, the SLTF disbursed GH₵64,645,575.00 of loans to 32,744 students.
Mr Yeboah urged students to take advantage of the new policy to obtain subsidised financing for their tertiary education.
Background
The government, through the SLTF, launched the “No Guarantor Policy” in June 2022.
The policy removes the requirement that students access loans with the aid of guarantors. Some students were denied access to loans due to a lack of guarantors; however, the new policy is expected to increase the number of students who can access the loans.
SLTF needed guarantors to help them trace defaulting borrowers. But the CEO of SLTF has explained that “with the widespread use of the Ghana card and the way it is interlinked with other essential services, the use of guarantors has become superfluous in our operations as a fund.”
Accommodation remains a challenge on the University of Ghana campus, as freshmen who have gained admission to further their education at the school have been left stranded.
The freshmen, numbering over 10,000, have not been able to secure an abode two weeks after school resumed; a situation that has left both students and parents frustrated.
According to some affected students and parents, they were not able to secure any spaces at the school’s halls since the process outlined by school authorities did not work out.
Students are required to register for slots at the university’s respective hostel facilities (halls) through the portal system, however, the affected persons lamented over its failure, citing this as the major hindrance to their not being able to secure spaces.
Consequently, there were scores of students with their luggage lined up at the various halls, such as the Commonwealth and Akuafo halls.
It appears this has been a challenge that has existed for many years, as students witness this trend every year. In 2019, about 9,000 students suffered a similar fate as they were not able to secure spaces in the halls.
Also, in 2022, only a little over 3,000 students who gained admission were able to secure housing.
Private hostels exist as alternatives, but this is not the preferred option since these facilities are usually more expensive than the school’s accommodation facilities.
Expressing his frustration, one student, Baba Rahman gained admission to study Human Resources, noted that although he completed the process on the portal, he still did not get admission into a hall.
“Coming from as far as Sefwi Wiawso, if I do not get a room by the close of the week, I will have no choice but to stop the school and apply next year because I cannot afford a hostel,” he lamented.
A parent, Mary Baidoo, explained that with her ward unable to access the portal to register for a room, they had been going back and forth with their belongings for the past week with the hope of getting a bed space, but to no avail.
“Looking at the way things are going, I need to painfully dip my hand into my pocket and find a private hostel, which currently costs not less than Gh¢7,000 in this current economy,” she said.
She called on the management of the university to step up in working on the online portal for registration to ensure a smooth allocation of rooms for new students.
“We are being told there is an injunction on the registration process in this hall, so we are waiting to hear from the school authorities. If not, I will have to come from my home at Kasoa for lectures every day,” a Business Administration fresher, Michael Mensah, told the Daily Graphic at the Commonwealth Hall.
The Accra High Court has instructed three government institutions to apologize to Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri, editor of the news portal ModernGhana.com, for breaches of human rights.
The parties in the case filed terms which were adopted by the Human Rights Division Court 2.
In a judgment obtained by myjoyonline.com, the presiding Judge, Justice Nicholas Abodakpi held by the terms of settlement had been adopted by the court.
In July 2019, Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri, the Applicant, sued the National Security Coordinator, Inspector General of Police and Attorney General as Respondents for violation of his human rights.
The judgement ordered that the respondents shall issue an apology to the applicant and have the same published in the Daily Graphic within 14 days of the adoption of the terms of the settlement.
The respondents are also to pay compensation, and legal fees and shall pay for gadgets that were seized from the applicant including a laptop, two mobile phones and a tablet.
Arrest, detention and torture
On June 27, 2019, gun-wielding operatives of National Security arrested Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri and his reporter Emmanuel Britwum at their offices.
The officers whisked them into a black van, strapped their heads in black polythene bags and sped off.
Their laptops and mobiles were confiscated and they were subjected to interrogation at National Security offices.
Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri, the Editor of the online news portal, Modernghana.com, later told the media he was subjected to electric shock and other forms of torture whiles in detention.
The interrogation was on two articles the website published on the National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah.
The National Security Council Secretariat denied it tortured the journalist.
The Ministry said the journalists were picked up for allegedly engaging in cybercrimes.
On July 5, 2019 State prosecutors filed cybercrime charges against Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri and two other journalists, Emmanuel Britwum reporter of ModernGhana.com and Obeng Manu Editor of Peace FM for alleged unlawful access to an email account belonging to a local radio station Peace FM.
However, the state was forced by the Accra High Court to drop charges the first day the journalists appeared in court.
This was after the Judge, Afia Asare Botwe, pointed out errors and turned down appeals by Senior State Attorney Stella Ohene Appiah because what the state wanted to court to do was without legal backing.
Lawyers for the accused, led by Samson Lardy Anyenini, had said the criminal case was a face-saving act that was doomed at inception.
Ajarfor sues National Security Coordinator and two others for torture
On July 11, 2019, Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri instituted legal action against the National Security Coordinator, the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General for the torture he suffered at the hands of the national security operatives.
He prayed the Human Rights Division of the High Court to direct the Attorney-General to find, name and subject the National Security Coordinator and the officials, who were directly or indirectly involved in human rights violations against him, to criminal prosecution or punishment.
He also prayed the court to order the immediate and unconditional release and surrender of all seized items to him.
The application for the enforcement of Mr Ajarfor’s fundamental human rights was filed on his behalf by Samson Lardy Anyenini who was working with a legal team including Dr Justice Srem Sai and Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo.
A Pediatrician at the Korle Bu Hospital, Dr Annie Owusu has stated that the most common cause of UTI in children, particularly in girls, is improper cleaning after using the restroom.
Urinary Tract infection, popularly known as UTI, is a bacterial infection that affects the Urinary tract and components involved in urine production. This happens when bacteria get into the wrong tract of the body.
”Pre-Schoolers are the ones much prone to this infection, mostly as a result of neglect”.
Dr. Owusu noted that UTI can be attributed to some symptoms that indicate other illnesses including fever, constant vomiting and diarrhea, sluggishness and lack of appetite to toddlers whilst Pain in urination or frequent urination, cloudy urine and colorization is common in the older children.
She advised that although some illnesses could be swept under the carpet, Parents should endeavor to treat UTI with urgency as neglection could lead to extreme cases such as kidney failure in kids.
For many, being born into a wealthy home is almost an insurance against the difficulties and discomforts of life. It is sometimes even seen as a launch pad to riches. For business moguls and philanthropists, this is far from the truth.
Born to a wealthy man in a village in one of Ghana’s poorest regions, Upper East, young Seidu, who targeted the impossible, neither had life on a silver platter nor inherited any lunch-pad riches. Unlike many children of the wealthy few, Seidu did not stay with his biological parents to enjoy the conveniences that his dad’s wealth could buy.
Despite that early-life hard luck, young Seidu trudged through life’s trenches with bare audacity until his intense, stern gaze into poverty’s face eventually bought him freedom from the wants of this world.
Realising early in his life that he had absolutely no one but himself to blame and hold responsible for everything that either happened or did not happen to him – whether right or wrong – young Seidu would fuel his mission to escape from poverty with sheer hunger and anger.
As he told CTV’s Nana Otu Darko in a recent interview, hunger and anger drove him to think his way out of the trenches of poverty.
Gifted with wisdom to know from very early in his life that “my dad’s wealth wasn’t mine”, tough Seidu would start from very humble beginnings to conquer the behemoth heights of poverty.
“I wasn’t born into riches. I didn’t inherit riches although my father was a rich man. People who inherit riches normally don’t succeed because they would have had a pampered upbringing and mess up later”, he waxed philosophical to Nana Otu Darko.
“I’m a very tough and fearless person but humble. I grew up at Burma Camp among soldiers, so, you can imagine how tough I am. I have been a cobbler (shoeshine boy) before. I was also a bus conductor (trotro driver’s mate) at a point in my life”, he recounted.
“It is hard work and the grace of God that has brought me this far”, Mr Agongo, who now owns media giant Class Media Group and a plethora of other businesses, acknowledged the handiwork of the Divine God in his life.
To him, “it is foolish” for anyone to rely on their parent’s wealth to build their life because whereas hunger and anger may have been the motivators that fueled their ancestors’ hustles, a voracious appetite to “show-off” on social media in “designer” stuff might, more than likely, be the motivator for the progeny.
“Hunger makes you think. Secondly, anger can drive you to success. It has nothing to do with your parents’ wealth. I know the children of the rich will suffer in the future because they would not manage that wealth properly because their parents were driven by hunger and poverty but they are being driven by social media, so, they buy designer belts, shoes, and cars. You’ll never succeed that way”, the owner of the now-defunct Heritage Bank Limited continued.
“I’m grateful to God for how he wired me because I realised from an early age that I can’t blame anyone for my circumstances. I blame myself for everything”.
And, so, he became his own boss from the very outset. As CEO of his own shoeshine, busy young Agongo put his very heart into his job. Excellence was his target and excellence he hit.
With the same fervour, dedication and commitment, young Seidu took his trotro mate job to dizzying heights.
He was on to a good start – thanks to his toughness and rugged audacity to succeed.
He then took things a notch higher. “I was the very first person to set up a communication centre at Burma Camp”, he said with well-deserved pride, recalling: “People queued to speak to their soldier relatives abroad at my booths. It was very successful”.
“By the grace of God, no enterprise I establish ever fails; it’s just that I don’t get the right people to run them. It’s the same for all business owners in the whole of Ghana. Businessmen are struggling and suffering to get honest, decent managers and workers but don’t get them.
It’s difficult because all that those people think about is what my family and I have and how they will mess it up, without thinking that the better you run my business, the more experience you gain to run yours in the future”, the media mogul bemoaned.
But it would take him quite some doing before his bank and media forays.
“Real businessmen have humility and are able to do even the dirtiest and lowliest of jobs but in our part of the world, businessmen are all about showing off with big cars, among others, so, they make the concept of business look different”.
Far from being a show-off and keeping his eyes on the ball, Seidu Agongo turned his attention to even much bigger things.
“While at the Burma Camp, I loaned the proceeds from my communication centre business to the soldiers at a 30-per-cent interest rate because I didn’t know what to do with the huge profit. I did very well with that business, too”.
“From there, I went into rice, sugar and tin tomatoes trading at Nima. I created the bustling business environment you see at Nima today by virtue of my business. I attracted people to Nima to trade. Everyone knows me at Nima as ‘Seidu the Rice Seller’.
I could sell GHS4 million worth of rice in a day. You can ask Olam, Stallion and others. Banks were unable to count my money and, so, they did what they could and returned the following day to continue counting the money”.
“I drove trailer trucks myself to go and cart rice to sell. I could bring 20 to 30 containers of oil to Nima. The whole of the Nima Roundabout gets clogged with human and vehicular traffic just because of my trading activities there. I’ve done a lot of work in my life but my philosophy is the work must impact the lives of people positively”.
“The rice brands I sold were mostly imported brands from Thailand and USA. I only sold foreign rice. So, it meant we were creating jobs for those countries anytime we consumed their rice. It wasn’t meaningful to me because I believe money must be made in a satisfactory way to help other people but not through any means at all, irrespective of the consequences”.
“So, I began searching for institutionalised businesses protected by government regulations to establish more businesses. That’s what got me to set up Heritage Bank. Such businesses can outlive me and last for decades because they would have had protection from government regulatory institutions”.
Heritage Bank Limited, which he said “was doing well” even when it was collapsed by the Bank of Ghana, was one of those institutionalised businesses.
Ironically, it didn’t get to enjoy the regulatory protection that had attracted Mr Agongo to venture into such waters. The giver of the protection killed the seeker of that protection.
“The success of every bank depends on the kind of board members you have: are they people you want to control, or do you want them to use their knowledge and expertise to run the institution independently of you? I didn’t want remote-controlled board members. I wanted people who could look me in the face and tell me the truth, so, I had very good board members.
For instance, the late Prof Kwesi Botchwey was the Board Chair. Also, Mr Benson Nutsukpui, a former President of the Ghana Bar Association, a very respectable person who won’t allow anyone to dent his reputation, was a member of the board”.
Despite the bank’s death, Mr Agongo’s toughness isn’t shaken one bit. “I came into this world to experience life, not to avoid it, so, I am always prepared for whatever happens. If I can help the situation, I would do everything possible to salvage what I can and leave the rest to God, but if it is beyond me, I just leave it all to God to deal with”.
“I don’t want to go too much into the Heritage Bank matter”, he pleaded, explaining: “Because up till now, I haven’t been given any letter about why the bank was collapsed but, maybe, the regulators know why that happened. Apart from the announcement of the bank’s collapse in the media, I never had any official correspondence to that effect. I don’t fault anybody because every misfortunate has a purpose. So, I don’t question God about anything that happens. He knows best”.
Rather than worrying about the millions of dollars he lost following the collapse of the bank, Alhaji Seidu Agongo – very typical of his philanthropic nature – is more concerned about the fate of his workers who suddenly lost their jobs.
“I was worried about the bank’s collapse because my workers who had families and dependents lost their jobs and livelihoods suddenly just because of the decision of the central bank to collapse the bank. So, the human aspect of it really breaks my heart but I leave it all to God, He knows best”.
“It’s unfortunate that the major reason that motivates certain actions of the typical Ghanaian is short-sightedness. Even animals protect each other, so, to collapse banks suddenly without thinking of the repercussions on the workers and their families and dependents were heartbreaking for me.
I strongly believe that any action that would have a rippling effect on a lot of people and their lives and livelihood must be well-thought-through otherwise, the life of the person taking the action will even go in the reverse direction. Institutions must not act willy-nilly but I believe God is king”.
Mr Agongo, a young tough shoeshine boy and trotro mate, who now employs and pays an “uncountable number of workers”, said: “Even if Heritage Bank doesn’t bounce back, something bigger than it will come up because I have vowed to sacrifice myself to the service of the nation by doing something special for this country – something that will make you proud to be a Ghanaian; not material things like cars, etc.”
As for his media empire, which consists of nine radio stations across the country, a TV station and a news portal, Mr Agongo said he sought to use them to correct the waywardness of the country.
“I saw Ghana as going wayward. Not that I disrespect anybody. So, I wondered how I could get a medium through which well-meaning Ghanaians and I could speak to the masses. I feel my media houses have achieved only 3 percent of the vision for which I set them up. They are region-based and the objective for setting them up was for them to own the regions and impact the lives of the people in those parts of the country but I don’t see much of that”.
“I don’t dictate to my radio stations what to say and not to say. Even if I’m in the news for a bad reason, I won’t stop them from reporting on it”.
What Drives His Business Success?
“Every successful businessman must be humble enough for even his security man to be able to approach him with new ideas because as a businessman, whatever people tell you is important since all knowledge is not in one person’s head”, Mr Agongo, who rises for work every 3 am, said.
“One thing about Ghanaian businesspeople is that they like to show off. They buy the latest cars and chase everything in skirts but money is spiritual, it doesn’t like to be messed about with. And God has already planned everything in the Universe, so, all you have to do is find your place in it and fit in because we’re insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
So, there are so many factors that lead to the failure of businesses in Ghana. Even government policies are a factor as well as hatred, jealousy, the proverbial ‘pull him down’ syndrome and stereotypes – Who is he? Where’s he from? How can a northerner, whose kin and kith are known to be fufu pounders, security guards and farm hands, own a radio station? Are you God? You are not God. It’s all hatred”.
“[Barack] Obama, from Kenya, rose to become the US President. As we speak, a Briton of Indian ancestry is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It means you can’t, in the slightest way, alter God’s plan, so, shut up and be in your corner and do what you can and leave the rest for God. But, sometimes, we try to interfere with God’s plan. So, for success, there must be a change in mindset. You must go through the process rather than chasing overnight success”.
“Once you go through the mill and you establish yourself, it is difficult to bring you down”.
Attitude of The Ghanaian Worker
“If care is not taken, it may get to a time that no businessperson would establish any jobs because the attitude of the average Ghanaian worker is bad and appalling. Every business is like an infant. It needs nurturing. But Ghanaian workers don’t think about the job but rather what they would get from it. We need to prioritise things.
First of all, you can’t make money without putting in efforts that would result in money as the outcome. You have to use the strength, wisdom and knowledge God had gifted you with to make the things you want manifest because God didn’t give anybody money to come onto this earth. If He wanted it so, He would have designed it so.
But He gave you wisdom, knowledge and strength to work and, so, if somebody has employed you to do a certain job, care about the job: what can I do to make it better? What are some of the weaknesses? What level do I want to take this job in the next two years?
Once you think that way, money has no choice but to come. Every business evolves but a typical Ghanaian worker is all about the money. Even when you express gratitude, they wish it could be money. So, you should be able to gauge the stage of the business and tie it in with your demands and expectations because there is no free lunch. It’s a two-way affair: you can’t get what you don’t create.
What Gives Him Satisfaction
I’m satisfied when I am able to help a lot of people and families to realise their dreams. At the end of the day, that is what matters. It’s not about the car you drive or the plane you fly in. all that is vanity. But if I am able to help one million people and their families and dependents, at least that would reduce poverty and suffering. There are some brilliant students from poor homes who would have gone to waste had I not adopted them or intervened one way or the other.
Is Ghana on the right path
I feel Ghana has never been on the right path even from Nkrumah’s regime. I won’t talk about only this leadership. I feel Nkrumah, Kufuor, Jerry Rawlings, Atta Mills, this leadership [Akufo-Addo], we’ve not been under any right leadership because Ghana has no structures. If you are a president, it is only the structure that protects you. The structure makes you the commander of the Ghana Armed Forces.
If your structures are not right, what do you think we can achieve? There are no structures. Institutions are not right. You can’t achieve anything. Forget it. So, businesses will keep collapsing. The institutions are not strong. The judiciary is protected by the institutions; if it’s weak, nobody would want to be a judge. The presidency is protected by an institution if it’s weak … If a businessman is coming from Singapore or America, he looks at the institutions, not the presidency.
That is it. And, since Nkrumah’s time to date, institutions are not working. Let me be very frank with you, I’m coming from America to invest $100,000 in Ghana. I will be looking at the institutions, not the presidency because the president will be gone in eight years, maximum but how is our police system working, how is our military working, how is our judicial system working, how is our labour system working? It’s the institutions that protect your investment.
So, that is why people who amass wealth in government become paupers after leaving office in about five years because the structures are not there to protect him but if you look at somebody like Donald Trump, his father was into real estate and he still benefits from that inheritance.
So, if the institution doesn’t work, discretionary actions take over. Institutions protect growth, protect businessmen, protect investments, protect even succession plans, so, trust me, you can’t get one 100-year-old business in Ghana because we don’t have the institutions to protect them to grow to that extent.
Even wills can be manipulated. So, since Nkrumah’s time to date, if those things are not sorted out, we are just wasting our time. I’m a realist. The sad story is that once the institutions and the structures are not working well, we are all behaving like mosquitoes.
Favourite Quote
‘Time will eventually expose you’. And, so, time did expose Mr Agongo to the world as a strong-willed businessman who weathers whatever storms fight his progress and shrugs off hurdles.
But, perhaps, time, has more to expose than the Agongo we see now, for ‘vindication lies within its womb’.
A French court has ordered the removal of a statue of the Virgin Mary from a small town, alleging that the religious display violates the separation of church and state.
The statue is located at a crossroads in La Flotte, a municipality of 2,800 inhabitants on the popular holiday island Ile-de-Re, off France’s Atlantic coast.
The statue was erected by a local family after World War II in gratitude for a father and son having returned from the conflict alive.
Its initial home was a private garden, but the family later donated it to the town which set it up at the crossroads in 1983.
In 2020, it was damaged by a passing car, and the local authorities decided to restore the statue and put it back in the same place, but this time on an elevated platform.
Complaint
That move triggered a legal complaint by La Libre Pensee 17, an association dedicated to the defence of secularity, on the basis that a French law dating back to 1905 forbids religious monuments in public spaces.
A court in Poitiers followed the argument as did, on appeal, the regional court in Bordeaux, ordering La Flotte to remove the statue, according to a press statement.
Local mayor Jean-Paul Heraudeau called the discussion around the statue “ridiculous” because, he said, it was part of the town’s “historical heritage” and should be considered “more of a memorial than a religious statue”.
But while the court accepted that the authorities had not intended to express any religious preference, it also said that “the Virgin Mary is an important figure in Christian religion,” which gives it “an inherently religious character”.
According to Catholic doctrine going back to the New Testament, God chose Mary to give birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin, through the Holy Spirit.
Catholicism, and several other religions, venerate Mary as a central figure in their faith, and she has been the subject of countless works of art over the centuries.
La Flotte has six months to remove the statue, the court said.
A police officer and his child have been killed after a fire destroyed the police barracks at where the family was residing.
The police officer is reported to have been with the anti-robbery unit of the Ashanti Regional Police Command.
According to the Citinewsroom.com report, the Assembly Member for the Apromase/Asawase Electoral area, Ernest Kwarteng, said the cause of the fire is yet to be revealed.
“According to eyewitnesses, the fire swept through one of the rooms and as we speak, a married man, the wife and daughter are no more.”
“They have been burnt and the body deposited at the morgue. The police came in but we are waiting for the experts to tell us exactly what happened”, citinewsroom.com quoted Ernest Kwarteng as having said.
Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, says he will report one of the members of the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral Secretariat to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) .
Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa has presented evidence, accusing the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Secretariat, Rev Victor Kusi Boateng, of registering a company in a different name to transact business with the Secretariat.
Passports made available by the lawmaker showed the name, Kwabena Adu Gyamfi, who is registered as one of the three directors of JNS Talent Centre Limited. That firm was cited byNational Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for receiving about GH¢2.6 million from the Secretariat for “no work done”.
According to the Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, Rev Kusi Boateng is the same Kwabena Adu Gyamfi despite differences in age, TINs, professions and addresses on the passports.
“From unassailable and irreproachable documents in my possession, Rev. Victor Kusi-Boateng AKA Kwabena Adu Gyamfi uses multiple passports and multiple identification cards with different names and different dates of birth as his special modus operandi,” the MP wrote on Monday, January 16.
He later added: “These explosive findings make the conflict of interest charge in the GHS2.6million scandalous payment by the National Cathedral of Ghana to the shady JNS Talent Centre Limited even more blatant, direct, offensive and absolutely embarrassing.”
The lawmaker says he will proceed to CHRAJ on Monday at 1:00pm for the corruption-investigating body to invoke “its mandate under Article 218 of the 1992 Constitution to investigate the odious conflict of interest”.
He has also served notice to file an urgent question when Parliament resumes for the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, to inform Ghanaians why Rev. Victor Kusi-Boateng qualified for a diplomatic passport and the nature of due diligence, if any, her ministry may have carried out.
He said he will also file an urgent question for the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, on exactly what work JNS did to warrant the GH¢3.5 million transfer and why that transaction did not find expression in his GH¢339 million cathedral withdrawals as presented to the Vote of Censure Committee.
A presidential aide,Charles Nii Tagoe, has chastised former President John Dramani Mahama for his remarks about the Agenda 111 Hospital project.
John Mahama in an earlier post on his social media handles claimed that the project which was in its fourth year has witnessed no success and turning out to be another form of sloganeering from the government.
“The ‘Agenda 111’ hospitals promise is in its 4th year, yet not a single hiospital has been completed to support quality health care delivery. This is contrary to the lofty promise made in 2020. The NPP must learn to take Ghanaians serious. Enough of the Slogans!” he tweeted on Saturday evening.
In a sharp rebuttal on social media, Charles Nii Tagoe alleged that John Mahama has always had issues with mathematics.
According to him, that explains why he will claim a project which was launched in August 2020 is in its fourth year.
“President Akufo-Addo first announcement on the “ Agenda 111 Hospital “ was in May 2020 during his 8th COVID address to the nation and the sod-cutting was done in August 2021. John Dramani Mahama ankasa no, ɔwɔ Maths problem fri titi,” Teiko Tagoe posted on his social media handles.
“John Dramani Mahama ankasa no, ɔwɔ Maths problem fri titi,” translated in Twi means “That John Dramani Mahama, he has a maths problem from way back.”
Agenda 111 project
The project was first mentioned by President Akufo-Addo in his eighth address on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Subsequently , government secured US$100 million start-up fund through the Ghana Investment Infrastructure Fund (GIIF) for the commencement of works on ‘Agenda 111’ district, specialised and regional hospitals across the country.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo performed the ground-breaking ceremony on Tuesday, August 17, 2021, at Trede in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region.
The Project Implementation Committee chaired by Chief of Staff, Madam Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, had secured sites and land titles for 88 out of the 101 district hospitals and each unit would cost US$17 million, covering 15 acres.
Each hospital is expected to be completed within 12 months, starting from the point of commencement.
The Agenda 111 project includes 101 district hospitals, six regional hospitals in the newly created regions, two specialised hospitals in the middle and northern belts, as well as a regional hospital in the Western Region and renovation of the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital.
The objective of the Project, Mr Oppong Nkrumah explained, was to significantly deepen delivery of quality healthcare at the district level, boost access to healthcare services for all citizens towards ensuring the attainment of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Three.
Each unit would have facilities such as Outpatient services, including consultation for medical and surgical cases, Ophthalmology, Dental and Physiotherapy and Imaging services.
According to government, on completion, the health facilities will be “the biggest investment in healthcare infrastructure in the country since independence.”
Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a private legal practitioner, has advanced reasons why individual bondholders must embrace the government’s debt restructuring offer.
According to him, the Ghanaian economy could crash if the bondholders do not quickly accept the offer as outlined by the Ministry of Finance.
Gabby, in a series of posts on social media, warned against the agitations surrounding the deal and encouraged the bondholders to play their role in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
“Ghana is in a very difficult place. What we are seeing with the mobilisation of agitation on individual bondholders poses a real and serious risk worse than what we witnessed when opposition to E-Levy succeeded in derailing an already shaky macroeconomic situation from 2021,” portions of his tweets read.
“The debt exchange programme is voluntary for individual bondholders but a very necessary evil for our economy.
“Its success is critical to restoring macroeconomic stability, securing an IMF prog. It hits those of us holding bonds very hard. A straight no to it is no solution!”, Mr Otchere-Darko stressed.
“If the no-compromise opposition to it wins, what then has been achieved? It may lead to national debt default.
“So what then happens to the value of your bonds after! Potentially worthless. If participation is low, we jeopardize resolving the economic crisis and hardships”, he wrote.
Gabby Otchere-Darko concluded his tweet storm by reminding Ghanaians that the country’s economy is not in a good shape and that certain uncomfortable measures ought to be taken to restore it.
“I’m sorry but we have to face the hard/painful truths. We ain’t sitting pretty. Our focus must be on how the burden to individual bondholders may be possibly eased; but not to take the hardline position of simply saying no to participation. It will come back to hit us harder!”.
This comes after two extensions of the expiration date by the Finance Ministry.
The decision to include individual bondholders was necessitated after government was forced by labour unions to abandon plans to include pensions in the debt exchange programme which was first announced in December 2022.
Outspoken businessman and economist, Dr Kofi Amoah, has criticised ministers who have announced their resignations from the Akufo-Addo administration.
Dr Amoah in a series of tweets said the decision of those ministers smacks of selfishness, especially because they are leaving at a time the country’s economy is in a nadir state.
His comments come following the recent resignations of Trades and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen and Agric Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto.
The two have resigned to focus on their presidential ambitions as the NPP race to elect a new flagbearer ahead of the 2024 general elections.
Kofi Amoah is of the firm belief that people who have no sense of duty and are comfortable leaving when things are going wrong to pursue their personal glory are either traitors or opportunists who should not be trusted.
“A Captain exchanging a damaged sinking ship for an imaginary unbuilt ship is a traitor and an opportunist, who cannot be trusted. Ghana needs captains with selfless determination to stay the course and not those who resign in times of distress. Please watch their actions, not their words.”
A Captain exchanging a damaged sinking ship for an imaginary unbuilt ship is a traitor n an opportunist, who cannot be trusted
Gh needs captains with selfless determination to stay the course n not those who resign in time of distress
Explaining further in an interview with GhanaWeb, Dr Amoah surmises that, “ The resignations of Cabinet Ministers to go pursue their personal ambitions to become president must be analyzed properly for meaning and significance.
The time fit captains to abandon their ships is not when it’s sinking… that’s when their passion and commitment to their passengers are most needed to take them to safety.
Often people already had ambitions to be president before they took up ministerial and cabinet positions… did they use these positions for riches, power and popularity to underwrite their goals for the presidency or they genuinely took the positions to help the affairs of the country.
As they say “The future is unknown but you can manage it a bit by what you do today.”
Ghanaians must begin to be more perceptive in their assessment of how to select leaders so that we can stop getting it wrong most of the time.”
Alan Kyerematen and Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto resign
Minister of Trade and Industry, John Alan Kyerematen earlier this month resigned from the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government. The former diplomat tendered his resignation on January 5, 2023. Alan is one of the frontline candidates expected to contest for the flagbearership of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP). Others include Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP) Kennedy Agyapong and former NPP General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong.
Three days after Alan’s resignation, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister for food and Agriculture also resigned from the Government.
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto was appointed Minister of Food and Agriculture in 2017 and has served in that capacity for six years.
Dr Akoto led the design and implementation of the Government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme – a policy intended to address the declining growth in the country’s agricultural sector.
The PFJ was launched on April 19, 2017, at Goaso in the Ahafo Region and has since become a key instrument in the Government’s efforts to transform the agriculture sector.
Samuel Koku Anyidoho, the former deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has shared his views on the story of the eight students of Chiana Senior High School who insulted President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in a viral video.
Koku Anyidoho in a social media post lambasted the girls, stating that they were lucky to find themselves in a jurisdiction where laws on such issues are not in the extreme.
Koku Anyidoho also noted that the girls should thank their stars for having a president who is kind enough to intervene in the decision by the Ghana Education Service to dismiss them.
He expressed gratitude to President Akufo-Addo over his decision to ask the GES to reverse its earlier decision on the girls.
“Honestly, these girls are damn lucky. In other jurisdictions, they would have been flogged publicly. What nonsense!! You joke with insulting the President & making it public? Ah! Ah! Ah! I guess we must thank President Akufo-Addo for having a kind heart to forgive them. Thanks Prez,” Anyidoho tweeted.
President Akufo-Addo intervened in the matter after his ‘attention was drawn’ to the move by the Ghana Education Service to sack the students.
The move by the president has been welcomed by the Education Ministry which has instructed the GES to review its decision.
The GES has consequently announced that it will work with the authorities of the school to find an alternative punishment for the implicated students.
Honestly, these girls are damn lucky. In other jurisdictions, they wld have been flogged publicly. What nonsense!! U joke with insulting the President & making it public? Ah! Ah! Ah! I guess we must thank President Akufo-Addo for having a kind heart to forgive them.Thanks Prez???? pic.twitter.com/OrRsm7lc3c— Samuel Koku Anyidoho???????? (@KokuAnyidoho) January 14, 2023
The embattled CEO of Menzgold and Zylofon Media, Nana Appiah Mensah, popularly known as NAM1, has taken to social media to announce that a new Zylofon Media is coming.
In a post made on his Twitter handle on Sunday, January 15, 2023, NAM1 revealed that a new dawn was upon the Ghanaian media space.
According to him, the people in the ‘Creative Arts, Mass Media, Sports, Science & Information Technology’ space should brace themselves because he is about to launch a brand new Zylofon Media.
He added that it was ‘a giant leap into everlasting glory’ as he shared the post on his Twitter page.
Just as expected, the post has been met with a lot of mixed reactions from his followers, especially, those who have their funds locked up at NAM1‘s Menzgold for more than four years because the company is no longer working.
Menzgold was asked to suspend its gold trading operations with the public by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018 before the business was finally shut down.
According to the SEC at the time, Menzgold had been dealing in the purchase and deposit of gold collectables from the public and issuing contracts with guaranteed returns with clients, without a valid license from the Commission.
The SEC said this was in contravention of “section 109 of Act 929 with consequences under section 2016 (I) of the same Act.”
Private legal practitioner, Gabby Otchere-Darko, has indicated that the refusal by individual bondholders to accept government’s debt exchange programme will worsen the country’s economic crisis.
According to the NPP stalwart, the widespread rejection by the bondholders will not augur well for the country, hence the need for them to soften their stance.
In a series of tweets on Sunday evening, he explained that even though the terms of the debt exchange programme will affect individual bondholders, it is a necessary step which must be taken to salvage the economy.
He said if the bondholders fail to cooperate with government, their bonds may be affected in the future in addition to a further deterioration of the economy.
“Ghana is in a very difficult place. What we are seeing with the mobilisation of agitation on individual bondholders poses a real and serious risk worse than what we witnessed when opposition to E-Levy succeeded in derailing an already shaky macroeconomic situation from 2021”, portions of his tweets read.
“The debt exchange programme is voluntary for individual bondholders but a very necessary evil for our economy.
Its success is critical to restoring macroeconomic stability, securing an IMF prog. It hits those of us holding bonds very hard. A straight no to it is no solution!”, Mr Otchere-Darko stressed.
“If the no-compromise opposition to it wins, what then has been achieved? It may lead to national debt default.
So what then happens to the value of your bonds after! Potentially worthless. If participation is low, we jeopardize resolving the economic crisis and hardships”, he wrote.
In concluding his comments on the matter, he said, “I’m sorry but we have to face the hard/painful truths. We ain’t sitting pretty.
Our focus must be on how the burden to individual bondholders may be possibly eased; but not to take the hardline position of simply saying no to particpation. It will come back to hit us harder!”.
While noting the possible dangers if the programme does not go through, he called on individual bondholders to rally behind government to help restore the economy.
The remarks by the founder of the Danquah Institute comes in the wake of growing public agitations from individual bondholders about government’s proposed domestic debt exchange programme.
In a bid to rescue the economy and secure a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), government has proposed that all bondholders will not receive any interests on their bonds for the 2023 financial year.
The payment of dividends, according to government is likley to begin next year, 2024 at a discounted rate of 5%.
In relation to this, bondholders who may want to transfer or even forfeit their bonds will not even be able to get the full principal they initially invested as bonds.
This proposal, since its announcement has been rejected by many bondholders who have subsequently expressed frustration about the development.
In their view, if the proposal is implemented, they will suffer a great deal of loss, with many of them stating that their investments may even become unprofitable.
Some of the aggrieved bondholders, who recently interacted with JoyNews have thrown their hands in despair, with others contemplating suicide.
The affected investors say with government’s intended management of their bonds, they may not even be able to meet their expenses such as rent, feeding and the payment of fees for their wards.
They have therefore called on government and other relevant stakeholders to intervene in the matter.
In this regard, policy analyst, Senyo Hosi, who is part of the crusade is currently mobilising all affected bondholders to collectively resist the move by government.
Speaking on JoyNews‘ PM Express last week, he stated that the proposal by government is ‘insensitive’ and must be outrightly resisted.
Meanwhile, government insists the debt exchange programme is the way to go in rescuing the economy.
Government’s deadline for bondholders to sign onto the domestic debt exchange programme expires today, Monday, January 16, 2023.
In its quest to address the country’s ongoing economic challenges, the government launched the programme to invite holders of bonds to voluntarily exchange approximately GH¢137 billion domestic notes and bonds of the Republic including ESLA and Daakye for a package of new bonds.
It is currently unclear how many institutions and individuals have signed onto the programme.
The domestic debt exchange program since its announcement has faced huge opposition from labour groups which managed to get pension funds exempted.
Also, individual bondholders who were included following the exemption of pension funds have taken a strong stance against their inclusion.
The situation has put government in a tight corner as it races against time to secure an IMF Board approval for a three billion dollar bailout.
A former Students Representative Council (SRC) President of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Joseph Osei Mensah, has threatened to sue his alma mater.
According to the 2018/19 SRC president, the school has failed to implement the recommendations of a committee that investigated him on grounds of embezzlement.
In a report by Myjoyonline.com, Osei Mensah accused the school of dragging its feet following his exoneration by the ad-hoc committee some three years ago.
He is wondering why the school has failed to clear his name after the allegation of financial impropriety caused his reputation to be muddied.
He is thus asking the school to take full steps to restore his reputation and that of the members of his administration lest he commences legal action against the school.
“I and the other executives have been very much affected by these baseless accusations.
“Unfortunately, Management, by all indications, has refused to publish the retraction and apology, which was the final recommendation to be implemented from their own Committee’s report.
“This, I find as a total disregard to us the persons involved. Hence, a court action might be the next option within the shortest possible time”, the former SRC President stated.
Joseph Osei Mensah and his executives, during the 2018/19 academic year, were accused by the then Dean of Students, Prof. Anthony Mawuli Sallar, of embezzling GH₵70,000 prior to the end of their tenure in office.
As a result of the accusation, the school withheld the former SRC president’s certificate pending investigations into the matter.
Other executives who were affected by the accusation were the SRC Vice President, Kwadwo Yeboah Darkwah; the SRC Treasurer, Felix Kwasi Donkor; the SRC PRO, Jeffred Okoe Aryeetey; the Finance Committee Chairman, Emmanuel Ashaley Djanie and the Chairman for the Social Planning Committee, Bright Ayi Junior.
However, an independent investigation conducted by the succeeding administration found Mr Osei Mensah and his colleagues innocent of the accusations.
As a result of the findings, the students’ leadership issued a press statement on February 4, 2020, to clear the former SRC president of the allegations stating that the SRC’s finances were intact and there was no embezzlement as reported by the then Dean of Students.
The management of the school, unsatisfied by the SRC’s findings, also set up an ad hoc committee led by Professor Philip Osei Duku, the then Deputy Rector with other members to probe the matter further.
Other members of the committee included the then Secretary of GIMPA, Julius Atukpui (retired); Head of the Department for Public School, Dr Lord Yevugah Mawuko; Director of Finance, James Abrah, and Charity Hayford, who served as Secretary to the Committee.
The committee after three months of investigation submitted its report which exonerated the accused and recommended the immediate release of all withheld academic certificates, payment of some GH₵16,717 as outstanding due them, as well as a publication of retraction and apology to clear their names in the unfortunate reportage.
Despite the recommendations by the committee, the school has only released a sum of GH₵16,717 on 18th August, 2020 due the SRC administration under his tenure following persistent pressure from his lawyers.
He is however demanding full implementation of the recommendation including a release clearing his name and that of his colleagues.
“It is important to note that the recommendations as captured in the Committee’s report, was further tabled at the Central Administration Committee of the Institute, chaired by then Rector, Prof. Phillip Bondzi-Simpson and was further affirmed, which gave the Secretary of the Institute the green light to proceed with the full implementation of the Committee’s recommendations. “Unfortunately, close to almost three years, the Management of GIMPA has failed to faithfully carry out the full implementation of the recommendations”, he lamented.
“The school has however released the certificates of the accused,” he stated.
A national organiser aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the just-ended national delegate congress, Henry Osei Akoto, has disagreed with a stalwart of the party on John Dramani Mahama’s achievements in the Volta Region.
In an earlier interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Dr. Obed Asamoah said that President Mahama didn’t do anything for the region, which is considered the powerhouse of the NDC.
This, he added, was responsible for the low numbers that the NDC received in the 2020 election, as compared to earlier feats by the founder of the NDC, Jerry John Rawlings, and President John Evans Atta Mills.
Dr. Obed Asamoah also blamed the former president for the NDC’s inability to retain the Hohoe seat, which, for the first time, was won by the New Patriotic Party’s John Peter Amewu.
But the 2020 parliamentary candidate for the Oforikrom Constituency, Henry Osei Akoto, has disagreed with the former Attorney General.
In a post shared on social media rebutting the claims of the law luminary and politician, Henry Osei Akoto stated that John Mahama undertook hundreds of projects in the party’s nationally acclaimed “world bank.”
“Respectfully, in response to my senior comrade, Dr. Obed Asamoah, about Mahama not doing anything for Volta, I beg to differ.
“John Dramani Mahama as president did over 30 projects under health, over 129 under education, about 60 projects in the transport sector, 16 projects in the ICT sector, and many other countless projects in different sectors.
“Any doubting Thomas can provide evidence to the contrary!” he wrote.
He further provided a list of the projects cutting across the transport, health, education, ICT, and many other sectors of the economy.
Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said that a close family member of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo told him that the current happenings in the country are not ordinary.
Speaking in a JoyNews interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe said that the problems the president is facing in governing the country have spiritual connotations.
“He (the family relation) said, “Doc what is happening to your brother (Akufo-Addo)?” And I said I don’t know; you are there with him.
“And his conclusion to me was that he thinks what is going on now is spiritual. This is exactly what he told me just some few days ago,” he said.
The statesman said that if the president or the country is under a spiritual attack “then we have to sit up properly.”
“Because some of the things that Nana Addo does, I don’t understand them, honestly,” he added.
The statesman said that he will for now withhold the identity of the family member but will disclose it in the future.
The Member of Parliament for the North Tongu constituency in the Volta Region, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has downplayed the possibility of President Nana Akufo-Addo completing the National Cathedral project before his tenure ends in 2024.
President Nana Akufo-Addo has on various occasions stated his willingness to complete the project despite the economic crisis and criticisms.
In a meeting with the Clergy at the Jubilee House on Monday, January 9, President Akufo-Addo said no matter what happens he will remain resolute and ensure that the National Cathedral gets to a very advanced stage before the end of his tenure.
But speaking on the Eyewitness News on Thursday, Okudzeto Ablakwa said the lack of progress on the project in the past ten months is an indication that it cannot be completed before the president’s tenure ends.
“Is this the time to do this, we are rushing to do this in four years, we are making history and it is the wrong history. The Washington national cathedral was built within 82 years. The Milan cathedral was more than 500 years. The Italians took their time, in periods of drought and economic hardship they took their time.
“This month is 10 months since the contractors left the site so when I hear the president screaming that we will build it, it is laughable, anybody familiar with this project knows that it is not possible.”
A fuel tanker containing 54,000 litres of petrol with registration number GT 8109-19 has gone missing.
According to Adom FM, the tanker was heading towards Kumasi when it was intercepted it at Okanta, near Nsawam by a gentleman who identified himself as a police officer.
The said officer tried to stop the tanker at Okanta but the driver who was descending a hill refused to stop.
The police officer then joined a taxi cab with some 3 other persons and chased after the tanker. After stopping them, the tanker driver and his mate were ordered to park the tanker and join the other persons in the taxi to the police station while the police officer remained at the scene.
NADMO Officer for Ayensuano, Nana Minta Snr disclosed on Adom Fm’s Dwaso Nsem that, “when the Police stopped the tanker, the tanker driver suggested that he parks the tanker and close the doors so that he can go with them to the Police station. The officer however told the driver to get into the taxi and that he will personally drive the tanker and follow them”.
According to the NADMO Officer, the taxi made a turn after the tanker driver and his mate sat in and headed back to an illegal checkpoint created by the said police officer at Okanta, where they were tied up by the taxi driver and the other persons in the car.
“the tanker driver and his conductor were left tied up at the checkpoint till some residents came across them this morning and untied them. They then took them to Teacher Mante Police Station. The driver and his conductor then took a taxi to the scene where they parked the tanker only to find it missing,” Nana Minta Snr added.
He also added that, neither the identity of the said person who was dressed in the police uniform nor that of the taxi driver is known.
The NADMO Officer narrated, “the act was done by one Police Officer who was in police uniform and was holding an AK 47 fire arm. The tanker driver and his mate couldn’t make out his name due to the dark; he didn’t mention his name to the driver. The driver said that, if not for the fact that he was holding the gun, he wouldn’t have stopped. So the gun he was holding was what made him stop, not knowing they are armed robbers.”
He added that, the case is currently at Ayensuano Teacher Mante Police Station. He also disclosed the tanker driver’s name as Isaac Abban and added that, they are currently at the police station but the whereabouts of the tanker is still not known.
He however stated that, he has been told a tracker is installed on the tanker so they have informed the owner about the incident and they are trying to track the tanker to find the location.
There is genius in simplicity, which makes the Band-Aid one of the most brilliant inventions in human history. A little adhesive tape, some cotton — and voila! The world is suddenly better.
Band-Aids are so ubiquitous and trusted today that it’s hard to imagine the planet or a medicine cabinet without them.
Yet they are a fairly recent addition to home and professional health care — invented only a century ago by a Johnson & Johnson employee named Earle Dickson.
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO INVENTED THE TV REMOTE CONTROL: SELF-TAUGHT CHICAGO ENGINEER EUGENE POLLEY
He wasn’t an inventor. He was a cotton buyer for the New Jersey company. And apparently he was one of the all-time great husbands as well.
“In 1917, Dickson married Josephine Frances Knight,” writes the Lemelson-MIT Program, an inventors’ think tank at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Earle Dickson was a newlywed in about 1920 when he conceived an idea to treat common household nicks and cuts. Johnson & Johnson then introduced his innovation as the Band-Aid in 1921. (Courtesy Johnson & Johnson)
“He quickly realized that his new bride seemed to constantly be nicking her fingers while working in the kitchen, and he thought the big bandages he was using to help her treat them were too large and clumsy.”
He found inspiration right there in his own home.
“Earle took two Johnson & Johnson products — adhesive tape and gauze — and combined them to make the first adhesive bandage,” writes Johnson & Johnson company historian Margaret Gurowitz.
Band-Aids are a low-tech invention, which makes their recent addition to our lives all the more surprising.
Transformative technologies such as the automobile, the miracle of flight and the seemingly impossible feat of transatlantic radio communication were all pioneered two decades or more before the Band-Aid.
Put another way: People could communicate instantly between New York City and London before they could stick a bandage on a bloody finger.
Dickson’s clever effort to comfort his wife would soon have an identity.
Brand-new product
Johnson & Johnson embraced Dickson’s idea — and dubbed the product the Band-Aid. The brilliant brand name is credited to factory superintendent W. Johnson Kenyon, according to a report by The Kiplinger Magazine in 1964.
Band-Aids hit the market in 1921, peddled at drugstores by traveling salesmen for Johnson & Johnson.
A vintage Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid box. The product was introduced in 1921. (James Keyser/Getty Images)
The generic term is adhesive bandages. Yet North Americans, and other people around the world, know them by the brand name Band-Aids.
In the United Kingdom, adhesive bandages are known generically as plasters; the European equivalent of the Band-Aid is the Elastoplast.
Band-Aids have been such a success that the term is used in everyday conversation in American English in place of adhesive bandages — so that the public sees no distinction between the two.
“His success resulted in the first commercial dressing for small wounds that consumers could apply with ease.”
It’s very much the way we refer to tissues as Kleenex or cotton swabs as Q-Tips.
Whatever they’re called, Dickson’s innovation dramatically improved first aid forever.
“Dickson created a prototype of cotton gauze and adhesive strips covered with crinoline that could be peeled off to expose the adhesive, easily allowing the gauze and strip to be wrapped over a cut,” writes the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
“His success resulted in the first commercial dressing for small wounds that consumers could apply with ease, and created a market that continues to thrive today.”
‘Piece of rag around the cut’
Earle Ensign Dickson was born on Oct. 10, 1892 in Grandview, Tennessee, to Dr. Richard Ensign and Minnie (Hester) Dickson.
The dad was a physician from western Massachusetts; the mom hailed from Connecticut. Earle Dickson was an only child after losing his younger brother Mark in infancy, according to U.S. Census records.
An individual holds a Band-Aid box during the BAND-AID’s Fashion Week Glamulance on Sept. 8, 2011, in New York City. (Kris Connor/Getty Images for Band-Aid)
The New Englanders made their way to Tennessee at some point, though Dickson lived for most of his life in Highland Park, New Jersey, where he found work at Johnson & Johnson sometime around World War I.
Despite massive advancements in battlefield medicine in the Civil War, Dickson was born into a world of primitive household bandaging — largely unchanged for centuries.
“Most people just used what they had in the house, which many times meant tying a piece of rag around the cut.” — J&J historian Margaret Gurowitz
“People needing a small bandage had to make one themselves, and they were often too cumbersome to be easily applied by one person,” Johnson & Johnson historian Gurowitz claims.
“Most people just used what they had in the house, which many times meant tying a piece of rag around the cut.”
The medical community had in previous decades made new efforts to improve home bandage care.
Earle Dickson invented a new form adhesive bandage, now known as the Band-Aid, at his home in Highland Park, New Jersey. He was inspired to treat his wife, Josephine, who suffered from household nicks and cuts. (Illustration by Chris Hsu from “The Boo-Boos That Changed the World” by Barry Wittenstein. Used by permission of Charlesbridge. )
“In 1845 Horace H. Day patented a surgical plaster composed of natural rubber and resin coated on cloth,” according to the “Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions” by David J. Cole, Eve Browning and Fred. E.H. Schroeder.
“Through the 19th century various tapes using natural (uncured) rubber were devised … None of these were aseptic or antiseptic.”
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO INSPIRED THE NATION IN TWO WORLD WARS: CHRISTIAN SOLDIER SGT. ALVIN YORK
Few doctors, the authors note, were ready to adopt the germ theory pioneered by English physician Joseph Lister.
This doctor would soon lend his name to a popular antiseptic mouthwash still in use today: Listerine. Dr. Lister would also inspire the creation of one of the world’s largest companies: Johnson & Johnson.
Earle Dickson was the right man at the right time with the right product — and working for the right company.
“An American, Robert Wood Johnson, heard Lister speak in 1876 and thought of preparing a commercial line of germ-free surgical dressings,” write Cole, Browning and Schroeder.
“Nine years later he formed a partnership with his two brothers and began manufacturing in New Brunswick, New Jersey, incorporating as Johnson & Johnson in 1887.”
Earle Dickson was the right man at the right time with the right product — and working for the right company.
Johnson & Johnson introduced the Band-Aid in 1921. Its creator, Earle Dickson, filed a patent for his “surgical dressing” on Dec. 29, 1925, and received the patent on Dec. 28, 1926. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)
“Johnson & Johnson was already a popular manufacturer of large cotton and gauze bandages for hospitals and soldiers when Dickson offered up his Band-Aid solution,” reports Lemelson-MIT, adding that Band-Aids first struggled to stick.
“The original handmade bandages did not sell well; only $3,000 worth of the product was sold during their first year. This may have been because the first versions of the bandages came in sections that were 2-1/2 inches wide and 18 inches long.”
People had to cut off the length of bandage needed to cover the wound. It was clumsy by today’s standards.
Boy Scouts frequently suffered the exact kind of injuries, minor scrapes, cuts and abrasions that Band-Aids best cured.
Improvements quickly followed. Machine-made Band-Aids of various sizes were introduced in 1924. Sterilized bandages hit the market in 1939. A sheer-vinyl version was introduced in 1958.
But it would take brilliant marketing employing America’s cut and scrape-prone children to make the Band-Aid a cultural phenomenon.
America’s kids embrace Band-Aids
Johnson & Johnson found an army of young American adventurers to prove their product out in the field.
They were the Boy Scouts of America. They frequently suffered the exact kind of injuries, minor scrapes, cuts and abrasions that Band-Aids best cured.
Johnson & Johnson helped popularize Band-Aids in the 1920s by sending them out in the field in first-aid kits for the Boy Scouts of America. The original 1925 “Boy Scout First Aid Packet” had a triangular bandage for a sling, a compress and two safety pins. It came in a cardboard container. (Boy Scouts of America)
“In the 1920s, the company began distributing, for free, an unlimited supply of Band-Aids to Boy Scout troops across the country,” Scouting Magazine reported in 2018.
“Band-Aids also were included in the custom first-aid kits Johnson & Johnson produced for the Boy Scouts of America. The kits were designed to help Boy Scouts earn merit badges like First Aid. The original 1925 ‘Boy Scout First Aid Packet’ contained a triangular bandage for a sling, a compress and two safety pins. It came in a simple cardboard container.”
Band-Aids found an international audience when they traveled overseas by the tens of millions with U.S. troops in World War II.
A more advanced Boy Scouts first-aid kit came in tin cans. The Girl Scouts were armed with Johnson & Johnson Band-Aids in 1932.
Band-Aids found an international audience when they traveled overseas by the tens of millions with U.S troops in World War II. Their service for Allied armed forces furthered the Band-Aid’s visibility and popularity.
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO INVENTED THE CRASH TEST DUMMY, A LIFE-SAVING INNOVATION
Band-Aids became a part of bedtime reading after the war, in one of the most successful children’s books in U.S. history.
“Doctor Dan the Bandage Man,” from Little Golden Books in 1950, tells the tale of a boy named Dan whose “boo-boo” is bettered by a mom when she applies a Band-Aid to his finger.
Transformed by the healing powers of the Band-Aid, Dan spends the rest of the book wheeling the bandages around in his wagon healing neighborhood pals, pets and even toys.
“Doctor Dan the Bandage Man” was published by Little Golden Books in 1950. It featured a boy named Dan who treated local children, pets and toys with Band-Aids. The book came with six Band-Aids and sold millions of copies — helping to popularize the Johnson & Johnson product. (Penguin Random House)
“The book came with six real Band-Aid Brand Adhesive Bandages — attached inside and advertised on the cover — so that kids could bandage their own hurt toys, should the need arise,” Gurowitz writes.
The publisher printed 1.75 million copies of the book in its first edition alone — putting a total of 10.5 million Band-Aids in the hands of American boys and girls.
Dickson’s Band-Aid had already proven itself perhaps the most successful home care product in history. Now it entered the realm of pop-culture icon.
The book was added to the Smithsonian collection at the National Museum of American History, which recognizes the book for its “innovative” display and marketing techniques.
“Simon and Schuster paired with Johnson & Johnson to promote the latter’s brand-name ‘Band-Aids’ and targeted one of its likeliest consumers, children,” the museum notes.
Johnson & Johnson helped popularize Band-Aids by packing them in first-aid kits for Boy Scouts. After an initial kit came in a simple cardboard box, Johnson & Johnson debuted an upgraded BSA first-aid kit in a tin box. Inside, scouts found burn and antibiotic creams, first-aid instructions and several kinds of bandages, including Band-Aids. (Boy Scouts of America)
“Boys and girls would sport Band-Aids in colorful shapes of stars, hearts, circles and flowers from samples included in the pages of the book, all the while learning the basics of first aid.”
Dickson’s Band-Aid had already proven itself perhaps the most successful home care product in history. Now it entered the realm of pop-culture icon.
The Band-Aid Bench
Earle Dickson died in Ontario, Canada, on Sept. 21, 1961. He was 68 years old.
After his breakthrough contribution to the company, Dickson spent the rest of his professional career working for Johnson & Johnson.
Earle Dickson was born in Tennessee on Oct. 10, 1892. A cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson, he invented the Band-Aid in his Highland Park, New Jersey, home in 1921. Dickson died in Kitchener, Ontario, on Sept. 21, 1961. (Courtesy Johnson & Johnson)
“Johnson & Johnson eventually made Dickson a vice president at the company, a position in which he remained until his retirement in 1957,” writes MIT-Lemelson.
“He was also a member of the board of directors until his death in 1961. At the time of his death, Johnson & Johnson was selling over $30,000,000 worth of Band-Aids each year.”
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO INVENTED THE CRASH TEST DUMMY, A LIFE-SAVING INNOVATION
The success of Dickson’s product is hard to fathom.
Johnson & Johnson today produces 10 million Band-Aids every day — about 117 bandages each second.
Yet Band-Aids have gone far beyond just a “product.” They’re part of the wider cultural lexicon.
Band-Aid inventor Earle Dickson lived in Highland Park, New Jersey. The community installed a Band-Aid bench on South Fourth Avenue in 2019 in Dickson’s honor. Local artist JoAnn Boscarino created it. (Highland Park Arts Commission)
“Put a Band-Aid on it” or “Band-Aid solution” are common refrains to describe a short-term fix to a problem.
The British charity ensemble group Band Aid formed in the 1980s to give the world the holiday classic “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” Band Aid inspired Live Aid, the international pop-culture sensation charity concert of 1985.
Johnson & Johnson today produces 10 million Band-Aids every day — about 117 bandages every second.
The Band-Aids were the name given to the rock-and-roll groupies by writer/producer Cameron Crowe in the movie and stage versions of “Almost Famous.”
Highland Park, New Jersey, celebrated its hometown medical-inventor hero in 2019, introducing a memorial to Dickson known locally as the “Band-Aid bench.” Local artist JoAnn Boscarino designed it.
It sits on South Fourth Avenue, about two blocks from the Dicksons’ former home on Montgomery Avenue.
“We’re really proud that Highland Park is known as the birthplace of the Band-Aid,” town councilman Matthew Hersh told Fox News Digital.
The new Band Aid 20 CD single “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” at HMV in London’s Oxford Street. (Peter Jordan – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
“It fits perfectly with our legacy of health care innovation.”
Highland Park, he noted, has spawned other great contributions to the world of science and health care.
The community was home to Selman Waksman, who won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering antibodies to battle tuberculosis; and Arno Allen Penzias, who won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for research that helped establish the Big Bang Theory.
“We’re proud of Highland Park’s history as a witness to innovation in health care and progress,” Hersh said. “We’re proud of Earle Dickson.”
Julia Roberts, one of most recognizable names on the planet, is not actually Julia Roberts. Introducing… Julia Mitchell?
The Pretty Woman star appeared in Ancestry’s Finding Your Roots with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. where she found out (along with the rest of us) that her great-great grandfather could not possibly be a Roberts. Gates Jr. laid out the research he found regarding Julia’s family tree.
Julia’s great-grandfather, John Pendleton Roberts, was born in 1878 as noted in Georgia’s 1880 census. He lived with his mother — Julia’s great-great grandmother — named Rhoda Suttle Roberts. (The 55-year-old Oscar winner noted she had never heard of Rhoda before.) However, John’s father is “missing” in any official records.
In the 1850s, Rhoda married a man named Willis R. Roberts — the surname Julia now carries — but he passed away in 1964, “over a decade before” Rhoda gave birth to Julia’s great-grandfather.
“Julia, Willis Roberts cannot possibly be your great-great grandfather,” said Gates Jr. “He was dead.”
“But wait. Am I not a Roberts?” asked the actress.
Gates Jr. said there are no records in Douglas County listing John’s father. Julia and one of her father’s first cousins submitted DNA samples and Ancestry matched them to another descendant thanks to publicly available databases.
“In the end, we found a cluster of matches that tied Julia and her cousin to one man,” revealed Gates Jr. Julia then read the name aloud: “Henry McDonald Mitchell Jr.”
“You just read the name of your biological great-great grandfather,” said Gates Jr.
“So, we’re Mitchells?” asked Julia.
“You’re Julia Mitchell,” confirmed Gates Jr., which caused Julia to erupt in laughter. “You are not a Roberts biologically.”
Looking back at the 1880 census, Gates Jr. theorized why Rhoda didn’t divulge who John’s father was: Mitchell Jr. is listed as living with his wife, a woman named Sarah, and their six kids. Mitchell Jr. lived a few miles from Rhoda and his mother lived just four houses down from her.
“Sarah was probably saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to see your mom that’s so sweet!’” quipped Julia.
“On the one hand, my mind is blown and it is fascinating. And on the other hand, there’s part of me that when I’m calmer, you know, can still wrap my arms around the idea that my family is my family,” added the actress.
Julia then laughed, “And I do prefer the name Roberts! Yeah, this was a very unexpected turn.”
Watch Julia Roberts learn she’s not actually a Roberts
Between theNational Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), to be politically accepted on any regional level in the country, is a big deal.
But even more specific and significant for these two leading political parties in the country are what kind of numbers or voter turnouts they religiously receive from these regions, collectively.
As is widely known or accepted, the people of the Volta Region have historically always warmed up towards the NDC more, just as the Ashanti Region does for the NPP.
In more specific terms, these regions have become unconventionally known as the ‘world banks’ of these political parties. And rightly so, they have been for many years.
For instance, in the Ashanti Region, out of the 46 constituencies in the region, the NDC currently only has 4 seats to its name. That number has remained the highest number of seats the NDC has had in the region since 1996.
In the Volta Region, until 2020, the NPP had never won a seat. Currently, the tally is 17 to 1 seat in the region for the NDC and the NPP respectively. Previously, since 1996, the NDC had always won all the seats in the region (16 seats in 1996, 15 seats in 2000, 15 seats in 2004, 15 seats in 2008, 18 seats in 2012, and 18 seats in 2016).
Let us not forget also that the founding fathers of both the NDC and the NPP have formed a great part of why there is such a voting pattern for their parties in both the Volta and Ashanti Regions. Jerry John Rawlings of the NDC hails from the Volta Region, while the Danquah-Dombo-Busia trio of the NPP are predominantly from the Ashanti Region.
Could the narrative be taking an interesting twist, or turn, or direction? Well, it may depend on how you take a look at it.
And it would have been a fairer assessment if this was with respect to both regions but interestingly, the bus seems to be stopping more with the Volta Region.
It all started with the conversations on who has done what, and who has done more or not for the region. Ordinarily, that should have been an easy pass for the NDC, who are more preferred in the region, but some questions have arisen on whether or not they actually deserve such a comfortable acclamation.
What exactly did Mahama do for Volta Region? – Obed Asamoah asks:
As the NDC, just as the NPP, prepares to elect a new flagbearer to lead it into the 2024 general elections, a leading member of the National Democratic Congress, Dr Obed Yao Asamoah, has become one of the people to draw in this whole ‘what have you done for the Volta Region’ conversation.
He has asked for answers from former President John Dramani Mahama on exactly what he has done for the Volta Region.
He questioned what the 2020 flagbearer of the party did for the region that is considered the stronghold of their party, while he was in political office, and for which reason he would seek their votes again to lead the NDC into election 2024.
According to Dr. Asamoah, Mahama’s failure to establish tangible developmental projects in the Volta Region resulted in residents voting against the NDC.
Supporting his claim, Dr. Obed Asamoah said the evidence can be seen from how much, in terms of numbers, the percentage of voter turnout from the region in the 2020 elections were, as compared to those of his predecessors; the late John Evans Atta Mills and the late Jerry John Rawlings.
“Vote Region is supposed to be the World Bank of the NDC. What exactly did Mahama do for the Volta Region?
“Remember in the last election, he did not get the kind of votes Jerry and the others were getting; 80, 90 percent (in presidential elections),” he said.
But then something that had happened a few months earlier seems to lend support to the questions being posed by the NDC stalwart.
In November 2022, during the 60th anniversary of the Hogbetsotso Za of the Anlo people, the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, made an appearance upon an invitation.
During his address, he courted the anger of residents present, becoming a victim of a booing incident targeted at the presidency, after he started making statements about the achievements of his party, the NPP, in the Volta Region.
As Agbotadua Kumassah, a member of the Hogbetsotso Planning Committee explained later, the people gathered at the grounds of the event started getting agitated when the vice president started talking about the economy.
He explained that the people, being well-aware that some of the things he was saying were false, started to boo at him.
“When he entered the economic situation, that is when the problem started. He mentioned, among others, that they built more airports than any other government, they built more roads than any other government and the people who were there did not see the roads, the airports, the roads he was referring to.
“So, that brought some agitation and it became very difficult to control the people because what he was saying, none of them happened in the area,” he explained.
Agbotadua Kumassah also explained that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s explanations on the government’s works in the digitization field, compounded the anger of the people, leading to them booing at him.
But how true or not are the things he said about what they had been doing?
NPP’s development feats in Volta Region evident – Makafui Woanya:
Being the man at the helm of things in the region for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Makafui Woanya, the regional chairman, has said countless times that his party has been able to perform creditably in the region albeit not so welcomed politically.
He explained in a graphic.com.gh report on January 5, 2023, that the NPP government has been able to revive and perform remarkable progress in some key infrastructural development projects in the region.
Some of these, he mentioned, are the steadily progressing Eastern Corridor Road Project, which is nearing completion; and the ongoing Southern Sector Water Systems Extensions Project.
“The University of Health and Allied Sciences, which the NDC is always quick to claim as their baby, is seeing massive infrastructural expansion,” he explained.
NPP drew its biggest strength from the Volta Region:
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has not been left out of the narratives or claims of what each party has been doing in the Volta Region.
In August 2020, the president said that the NPP considers the Volta Region as a “hallowed ground” that is symbolic of its struggle during the days of the party’s formation.
He added that history had even confirmed that the region had endorsed the NPP, and served as a place of refuge for its political fugitives during its darkest days, and for which reason the party can never discriminate against them.
“It was here in this region that people were most passionate about the political tradition. It was from here that the first people had to flee into political exile after independence, and it was in this region that many chiefs had to flee into political exile, and some died there.
“Many people forget that when J.B. Danquah, the first in the trinity of the Danquah-Dombo-Busia political tradition contested Kwame Nkrumah for the presidency, on Ghana becoming a republic in 1960, Danquah did not win in his home constituency in Akyem Abuakwa.
“But he won in two constituencies, one is right here in Anlo and the other is Ho West. If there was a little brittle tribal bone within my makeup, which there is not, I would not choose the Volta Region as a target. History would not allow me,” he said during a durbar of chiefs of the Anlo State at Anloga, during a working tour of the area.
John Mahama answers questions about what NDC has done for Volta Region:
Dr. Obed Asamoah’s questions have however not been left hanging because like a premonition, the former president, John Dramani Mahama, had touted his achievements in the Volta Region in 2021.
So, two clear years before such a question would be posed, the former president had already spelt out some of the achievements he had made in its ‘world bank.’
Among the tall list of things he said his government had achieved, were in educational infrastructure, health projects, roads, water and sanitation, among many others.
And much later, while speaking at a grand durbar to mark the climax of the Asogli Yam Festival in Ho, President John Mahama lamented the number of abandoned projects in the region, assuring the people that the next NDC government would complete them all.
“Projects started by the NDC have been abandoned and others that are to be completed in the region are being done at a slow pace. For some of the projects, this government asked contractors to stop work.
“But I make a commitment of the NDC that, God willing and thanks to your votes, in 2025, all these projects will resume,” he assured.
Volta must carry NDC as a religion – Fifi Kwetey:
Being the newly-elected General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fifi Kwetey, who is also the former Member of Parliament for Ketu South, appears to have a strong say on whose side the Volta Region should stick with.
In a GNA report of Thursday, January 12, 2023, Fifi Kwetey said the region must cement its place as an unmovable bastion of the NDC.
Admitting that the region’s hold as the fortress of the NDC has weakened in recent times, also because indigenes have become increasingly discouraged from identifying with it, he urged them not to lose sight of the fact that the NDC is a party birthed from their backyard.
“Volta is the region where saviours of the nation come from as far as this country is concerned but we need to know who we are, and somehow, we know who we are, and we need to start appreciating who we are.
“Volta must appreciate NDC and back it no matter what. It should become like a religion. We need to let our people appreciate that this is what we are. And I believe if we knew who we were, the situation where the love for this party would start dwindling in this region should not happen,” he said.
The general elections of 2024 is less than 2 years away and although both the NDC and the NPP have each successfully elected new party executives, there are still a few major political hurdles to surmount before the big day in December 2024.
New flagbearers and the election of parliamentary candidates that will represent the parties at the constituency levels in the country will solidify the preparedness of each side of the political coin towards the general polls but it cannot be lost on anyone that with the historic breakthrough that the NPP has made into the Volta Region by winning its first ever seat in parliament, the battle lines are surely drawn.
The Volta Region will play a central role in the elections and whoever emerges the winner will have to command a lot of influence from this region.
The Individual Bond Holders Association of Ghana (IBHAG) has cautioned the government against the inclusion of its members’ investments in the government debt restructuring process without engaging with them.
IBHAG warns that any disregard of this caution will be met with the most fierce resistance yet from its members.
The association further advises all individual bondholders, irrespective of whether or not they are members of IBHAG, to resist the temptation of signing onto the voluntary exchange of their existing bonds with the new ones floated by the government, the veiled threats from the minister of Finance notwithstanding.
According to IBHAG, most of its members are pensioners, traders, teachers, public servants, and individuals who have lost their jobs due to the unfavourable policies of the government.
“Some unemployed members have been able to make some savings from their sweat and toil, and have invested from as little as GHC500 in bonds, only for the government to rob them of their hard-earned savings – both interest and principal – using such an unconscionable debt restructuring process, which targets the individual.”
The association wonders what considerations went into the earlier exemption of individual bondholders from the local debt restructuring, only to replace the pension funds with them after labour had threatened strike action.
“We cannot be made to suffer for the recklessness and greed that characterized Ghana’s excessive borrowing, which largely is the reason why we are where we are. Government appointees at the Ministry of Finance cannot make millions of dollars as transaction (borrowing) advisors and go and enjoy with their family and friends, whilst we are denied the means to purchase our medications and pay for health care. Our inclusion means we cannot pay our children’s school fees, pay for our rent, and many other critical essentials. All these hardships are being thrown at us just to protect the greed of those appointees”, a pensioner who is a member of the association said.
IBHAG maintains that the Akufo-Addo led-government continues to overspend by maintaining bloated government machinery made up of party boys and girls with outrageous pecks.
“Whilst they continue to enjoy, the individual bond holder is being robbed by the government of his or her hard-earned savings in broad daylight, whilst the pecks of the party boys and girls are protected.”
The IBHAG called on stakeholders to join the advocacy against the looting of individual investments that the government has planned.
“Meanwhile, we urge all members as well as new ones to remain calm – even as they refuse to sign onto the voluntary exchange of bonds – as IBHAG continues to seek an audience with the government on these vexed issues.”
Veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr, has raised concerns over Akufo-Addo’s comments suggesting that prayers and divine intervention are the solutions to the challenges the country is currently facing.
According to him, the president; Akufo-Addo, has no business being at the Flagstaff house if that is the case because it will be better for those who speak to God regularly to occupy Flagstaff house.
He further stated that he is shocked the comment is coming from Akufo-Addo as he has never known the president to be one who exhibits such traits.
Speaking on Good Morning Ghana, he said;
“…I have never known him like this, there is a new Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, brand new Akufo-Addo. I never for one moment thought a day will come when Akufo-Addo will say publicly that all we need to do is to pray for out problems to go away and that the solutions to national problems like debt overhands and so on is divine interventions. I’m hearing a new Akufo-Addo.”
He said if prayer is the solution, then Akufo-Addo should vacate his for well known men of God like Archbishop Duncan William, Mensah Otabil and others to take over the Flagstaff House.
”The change in him is so dramatic and so phenomenal that it makes me worry. Let’s accept this is his current position, if this is his current position what is he doing in the Flagstaff House, if the solution to the national problem is divine intervention, then he is not qualified to be there. Because, when it comes to divine intervention, I don’t think he has the gravities of archbishop Palmer, I don’t think he has the credentials of Duncan William or Mensah Otabil, he should vacate the Flagstaff House for those who are in telephone with God every day,” he said in the show.
Jerome Yankey said he used to pull all-nighters when he was in college – not studying or partying, but scrolling on TikTok until the sun came up.
“I saw me not putting the effort into my own life, rather just trying to live vicariously through what I’m seeing,” said 23-year old Yankey. He said he lost sleep, his grades suffered, and he fell out of touch with friends and himself.
In 2021, he deleted the app. The positive impact, he said, was obvious. “It’s so great to be able to be sleeping again starting at midnight,” he said. “It’s great to be able to be up early and be more productive with the sun.”
In recent months, TikTok has faced growing pressure from state and federal lawmakers over concerns about its ties to China through its parent company, ByteDance. But some lawmakers and researchers have also been scrutinizing the impact that the short-form video app may have on its youngest users.
GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher, the incoming chairman of a new House select committee on China, recently called TikTok “digital fentanyl” for allegedly having a “corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America.” Indiana’s attorney general filed two suits against TikTok last month, including one alleging that the platform lures children onto the platform by falsely claiming it is friendly for users between 13 to 17 years old. And one study from a non-profit group claimed TikTok may surface potentially harmful content related to suicide and eating disorders to teenagers within minutes of them creating an account.
TikTok is far from the only social platform to be scrutinized by lawmakers and mental health experts for its impact on teens. Top execs from several companies, including TikTok, have been grilled in Congress on the matter. And this week, Seattle Public Schools sued social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube alleging the platforms have been “causing a youth mental health crisis,” making it hard for the school system “to fulfill its educational mission.”
But psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge said TikTok’s algorithm in particular is “very sophisticated” and “very sticky,” which keeps teens engaged on the platform longer. TikTok has amassed more than one billion global users. Those users spent an average of an hour and a half per day on the app in last year, more than any other social media platform, according to the digital analytics platform SensorTower.
“A lot of teens describe the experience of going on TikTok and intending to spend 15 minutes and then they spend two hours and or more. That’s problematic because the more time a teen spends on social media, the more likely he or she is to be depressed. And that’s particularly true for at the extremes of use,” said Twenge.
That may only compound a longer-term rise in mental health issues, partly fueled by technology. Psychologists say as smartphones and social media grew around 2012, so did the rate of depression among teens. Between 2004 and 2019 the rate of teen depression nearly doubled, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And for teen girls its worse. By 2019, one in four US girls have experienced clinical depression, according to Twenge.
TikTok said it has tools to help users set limits for how long they spend on the app each day. TikTok also continues to roll out other safeguards for its users, including ways to filter out mature or “potentially problematic” videos and more parental controls.
“One of our most important commitments is supporting the safety and well-being of teens, and we recognize this work is never finished. We continue to focus on robust safety protections for our community while also empowering parents with additional controls for their teen’s account through TikTok Family Pairing,” TikTok said in a statement to CNN.
The company said between April and June of 2022 it removed 93.4% of videos on self-harm and suicide from the app before they were ever viewed. But teens say it’s not the most egregious videos that keep them engaged. It’s the content programmed to them in the “For You” section of the app.
“It’s so curated to you,” said Angelica Faustino, an 18-year-old sophomore at the University at Buffalo, who says she spends 3 to 4 hours a day on TikTok.
“There is a lot of body checking on TikTok – a lot of people showing off things about themselves that are maybe unachievable. You see if enough times you are like maybe I should be that way,” said Faustino.
For all the concerns, however, there are signs that TikTok and other social networks can have a positive impact on younger users, too.
The majority of teens say social media can be a space for connection and creativity, according to Pew Research. Eight in 10 teens ages 13-17 say social media makes them feel more connected to what’s going on in their friends lives and 71% say social media is a place they can be creative, according to Pew.
And some in Gen Z, the generation that has been raised on TikTok, have found unique opportunities on the platform.
Hannah Williams spends her time on TikTok running her business, Salary Transparent Street. She interviews everyday Americans about the salary they make at their jobs, providing pay transparency to her nearly 1 million followers.
“I quit my job in May of 2022 to work on my social media page on Tik Tok full time because I saw a great opportunity to do something with my career,” said 26 year-old Williams.
“I think it’s interesting that we can try to use social media to really impact the world for good,” she said, “and I’m hoping that’s what happens.”
France on Thursday fined TikTok 5 million euros ($5.4 million) for shortcomings linked to the short video platform’s handling of online tracking known as “cookies”, which the ByteDance-owned company said it had now addressed.
French data protection watchdog CNIL said that its investigation only concerned the website tiktok.com and not the service’s much more heavily used smartphone applications.
The CNIL found that for tiktok.com’s users, it was not as easy to refuse online trackers as to accept them. The authority also found that internet users were not sufficiently informed about TikTok’s use of the cookies.
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“These findings relate to past practices that we addressed last year, including making it easier to reject non-essential cookies and providing additional information about the purposes of certain cookies,” a spokesperson for TikTok said.
“The CNIL itself highlighted our cooperation during the course of the investigation and user privacy remains a top priority for TikTok,” the spokesperson added.
Under European Union rules, websites must clearly ask for the prior consent of internet users for any use of cookies – small pieces of data stored while navigating on the Web.
They should also make it easy to refuse them, according to the EU’s rules.
($1 = 0.9253 euros)
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Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by GV De Clercq and Alexander Smith.
An accident at Gomoa Antseadze near Apam in the Central Region has claimed 7 lives.
The tragic incident which occurred on Thursday, January 12, 2023, involved a Sprinter mini bus with registration number GW7920-22, which veered off into the bush while travelling from Mankessim towards Accra, graphiconline reports.
Fire service personnel reportedly arrived at the accident scene at about 8pm following a report by the [passer-by at the Apam Fire Station.
According to the Central Regional Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, Division Officer III, Abdul Wasiu Hudu, the station quickly dispatched the rescue team to the scene and observed a Sprinter minibus was involved in an accident with a number of the passengers trapped in the vehicle.
He said the police carried the dead to the morgue.
Meanwhile, 8 people including an infant have reportedly sustained some injuries.
Fifi Kwetey, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said that the Volta Region as the portion of Ghana where heros of the country come from.
“Volta is the region, where saviours of the nation come from as far as this country is concerned but we need to know who we are, and somehow, we know, who we are, and we need to start appreciating who we are.
“Volta must appreciate NDC and back it no matter what. It should become like a religion. We need to let our people appreciate that this is what we are.
“And I believe if we knew who we were, the situation where the love for this party would start dwindling in this Region should not happen,” he said during a retreat for regional executives at Dzodze in the Ketu North Municipality.
He is concerned that unlike the Ashanti and Eastern regions which are strongholds of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), the NDC’s fortunes in the Volta Region are dwindling.
“Because somehow, they (Ashanti and Eastern) appreciate it, and believe in their party as a religion. Your Religion may not be the best religion, yet that is your religion. It is your responsibility to make sure you fix it, and you change it.”
Kwetey also tasked the rank and file to rededicate themselves to supporting the party and do all it takes to ensure that they sell the NDC gospel as the party gears up to wrestle power after the 2024 elections.
At the opening of the four-day event which was on the theme “Empowering Our Base for Victory in 2024,” Dan Abodakpi, Chairman of the National Council of Elders tasked party executives to unite with MPs and other stakeholders particularly the grassroots to be able to remain formidable.
Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Majority Leader in Parliament, has emphasized the governing New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) ‘we have the men’ slogan with respect to the upcoming 2024 flagbearerhip race.
According to him, most of the aspirants who are rumoured to be interested or have openly declared their intentions have what it takes to represent the party and to ‘break the 8,’ i.e. win the 2024 elections.
In an interview with pro-NPP network Asaase Radio (January 12, 2023), the Member of Parliament for Suame said even though a number of aspirants are in the race, one name stood above all but that he wa refraining from mentioning it yet.
“I can say that many of them that I have assessed have the potential of helping us break the 8 [but] there may be a primo among them.
“In terms of competence and qualification, I can vouch for many of them who have come up, like [Vice-President Mahamudu] Bawumia, Alan Kyerematen, Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Boakye Agyarko … Kennedy Agyapong, Kwabena Agyepong, Kofi Konadu Apraku …” he said.
The comments by the MP, who also doubles as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, comes on the back of two cabinet-level resignations in respect of Alan Kyeremayen and Owusu Afriyie Akoto, outgoing Ministers of Trade and Industry and Agriculture respectively.
The former resigned last week and has since announced his ambition to contest the NPP flagbearership. The latter’s resignation took place earlier this week and was accepted on Thursday, January 12.
Both the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the NPP are expected to elect their flagbearers ahead of keenly-awaited 2024 elections.
Former president John Dramani Mahama is seen as a frontrunner to lead the NDC for a third successive bid as candidate.
In the case of the NPP, aside from Alan, Bawumia and the, former Minister of Agric, Assin Central Member of Parliament Kennedy Agyapong and former General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong are among some of the candidates expected to contest for the slot.
As part of the government’s efforts to develop an integrated automotive value industry, the Trade Ministry has inaugurated the Ghana Automotive Industry Development Council.
The Council is made up of representatives of relevant stakeholders from both the public and private sectors.
The function of the Council will be to make recommendations to the government on the implementation of the Ghana Automotive Development Programme, including but not limited to the Incentive and Regulatory Framework, Access to Industrial Infrastructure, Vehicle Financing, Training, Technology Upgrading, Supplier Development, and Standards and Safety.
The drafting of the Ghana Automotive Component Manufacturing Policy will also provide incentives and a regulatory regime to attract component manufacturers into Ghana’s Automotive Industry whilst taking advantage of the existing resource.
The Ghana Automotive Industry Development Council will among others, develop an effective economic consultation structure to effectively address any issues related to Automotive Assembly activities and to provide input into any policy review exercise.
With the operationalisation of the Council, the Ghana Automotive Development Centre has also been established to serve as an Office Complex to among others host the Secretariat of the Council and provide offices for Policy Support, Vehicle Financing, Investment and Customs Facilitation, Training and Skills Development, Vehicle Testing and Certification as well as a showroom for exhibiting locally assembled vehicles.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen at the inauguration of the council appealed to all players in the industry to continue to work together to promote the development and competitiveness of the players in the auto industry in Ghana and position companies to take full advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Former presidential spokesman, Samuel Koku Anyidoho, has commented on the ragig debate on the controversial filming of footage from the Jubilee House by American rapper Meek Mill late last year.
Anyidoho described the episode as an embarrassment for the president and the nation at large and blamed the faux pas on officials at the presidency who should have enforced necessary protocols for visitors at the Jubilee House.
Meek Mill visited the presidency, after his performance at the Afro Nation concert in Accra, meeting with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the insistence of his daughter, Gyankroma.
Barely a week after his return to the States, the rapper released a promo to an upcoming video which contained footage from areas filmed outside and within the Jubilee House.
The video attracted massive backlash on the presidency and government at large, with critics on traditional and social media questioning the moral and security implications of same.
“Someone slept on their job and has created an embarrassment for the president and the country as a whole.
“For example, from what I saw, the guy was standing behind the presidential lectern.. and the Coat of Arms, which is usually for the exclusive use of the president, is in front of it. Who gave him that opportunity?” Anyidoho asked.
GhanaWeb checks show that the lectern Mill stood behind was that of “THE PRESIDENCY – REPUBLIC OF GHANA” which is used by all guests to the presidency. The president exclusively used one with the label “PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA.”
Anyidoho further explained that from his understanding of the viral clip, the rapper must have completed his formal engagement with the president before engaging in the other acts that should not have happened.
“The president must have already met him in his visitors or conference room and this boy descends and someone overlooks and allows him to do what he did,” Anyidoho stated on Accra-based Okay FM (January 10, 2023).
The rapper issued an apology to Ghanaians and the presidency after footage of the Jubilee House was contained in a video he was set to release.
He deleted the promo he had posted on Instagram and absolved the presidency of knowing that he was taking videos during his visit to the place.
Government is under fire to explain how the highest security installation in the country suffered such a breach.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central Kennedy Agyapong has been justifying why he deserves to lead the party in 2024.
He claims he has committed a lot of sacrifices for the party including paying off a loan of $3 million with interest that the party contracted when the party had nothing in the year 1992.
“I paid the loan with interest, and it took us eight years, Super Care Company LTD; my company took eight years to pay back the loan with interest. Three million dollars at that time plus interest in 1992. Even today as we speak, $3 million is a lot of money how much more 31 years ago.” Kennedy Agyapong said this in an interview with NET 2 TV.
According to the businessman, when the party won the elections in 2001 after a long struggle. However, Former President John Agyakum Kufuor never left him out and he is always grateful to him.
“That is why I will always give credit to President Kufuor. When he came to power, for the first four years I didn’t get any job to do, so when I went to tell him about it, he was shocked.
Kennedy Agyapong added that he purchased pickups for the NPP during elections.
“In 2004, Myself and Mr. Oppong, we bought 100 pick-ups for the party. In 2008 myself and Oppong again bought 240 TATA pick-ups for the NPP for every constituency” he claimed.
The Ghana Education Service’s decision to expel eight Chiana Senior High School students has drawn criticism from the minority in parliament (GES).
In a statement signed by ranking member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, the Minority described the decision as ‘harsh’ and ‘retrogressive’.
According to the Minority, even though the students who insulted President Akufo-Addo in a viral video acted out of order, their right to education should not be curtailed.
The statement said the right to education is guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution, hence the move by the GES must be reviewed.
“Whereas the Minority is against the misconduct of the eight students, and condemns same, we wish to state that the decision by the GES to dismiss them is harsh and retrogressive”, the statement emphasised.
The release from the Minority further disclosed that, “In this age and time when there is increased advocacy and renewed focus on increasing access to education, any decision that takes a child away from the classroom can only be seen as an absolute drawback to this renewed focus and objective.
It is therefore, regrettable to learn of the decision of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to dismiss the eight female students of the Chiana SHS in the Kassena Nankana West District of the Upper East region for insulting the President of the Republic some months ago”.
Having criticised the decision by the GES, the Minority went ahead to plead with the President to intervene in the matter.
“We are also by this statement, urging the GES to proffer an alternative but corrective punishment to the eight students.
This we believe would be in the best interest of our collective goal to ensuring that every Ghanaian child has access to formal education.
In conclusion, the Minority wishes to appeal to His Excellency the President, to use his good offices to pardon these students as he did in 2020 when a group of some students misconducted themselves towards him”, the statement ended.
Earlier today, the Ghana Education Service (GES) dismissed eight students of the Chiana Senior High School in the Upper East Region for allegedly insulting President Akufo-Addo.
Prior to the dismissal, the students had been on suspension.
The GES says its investigation into the incident confirmed that the students used unsavoury language against the President in a viral video.
It thus described the actions of the students as “very undesirable, and contrary to the acceptable standards of the conduct generally required of any student in Ghana’s educational system”.
Prior to the dismissal of the students, the GES had earlier apologised to the President over the said conduct.
Meanhwile, reacting to the news of the dismissal, some Ghanaians have taken to social media to berate the GES over its decision.
According to the critics, the decision is simply untenable.
One of them is an advocate for children’s rights who is unenthused about the decision.
The Country Director of the International Child Development Programme, Joyce Larnyoh said the Ghana Education Service should employ more appropriate means of punishment other than dismissal.
Speaking on JoyNews’ News Desk, Mrs Larnyoh reiterated that no child should be denied the right to education no matter the circumstance.
Others have however backed the move; arguing that it will help instill discipline amongst students, especially at the Senior High School level.
The affected students have since apologised for their actions.
Ghanaian economist, Kwame Pianim is currently trending on Twitter following his comment on Ghana’s economy.
Kwame Pianim in an interview with TV3 said government is sitting on a timebomb if it goes ahead to implement the Domestic Debt Exchange programme.
He further said that Ken Ofori-Atta’s irresponsibility and recklessness has led the country into a ditch, which has resulted in the need for the country to undertake a debt restructuring exercise for an IMF bailout.
“…I would have been proud as a Ghanaian to contribute to the debt restructuring exercise but I will not contribute one pesewa for Ken Ofori-Atta leading this, he led us into the gutter…” he stressed.
Following his comment, he has topped Twitter trends with many social media users reacting to his statement.
“AIR -Arrogance, Incompetence and Recklessness. Renowned economist Dr. Kwame Pianim. Who is he referring to?” Nelson Bonkena quizzed.
“We have men like Kwame Pianim in this country but we no dey mind them…” Mr_Kormy Tweeted
Below are some of the tweets
Kwame Pianim dropping common sense but it look like gems! NPP is so arrogantly ignorant and dvmb esp their supposed economic team and Ghanaians are so docile and stvpid allowing these to go on unstopped! And funny enough #BawumiaNeverLies is trending at 1 pic.twitter.com/uv7nnpCG2t— JESUS Is King ????✨ (@GhanaSocialU) January 12, 2023
Ken Ofori Atta is behaving like a child who killed both parents and when he was charged for murder, pleaded he should be pardoned because he is an orphan.
~Kwame Pianim
— Suadique Musah???? (@Suadiquemusa) January 12, 2023
i can sit and listen to kwame pianim for a whole day.
pure wisdom !
— Rahman™???????? (@rahmann_23) January 12, 2023
If we have people like Kwame Pianim in this country and still leaders in this country does not seek advice from him hmmmm….what an intelligent man ,God bless him and may he live long..@kwamepianim#Tv3newday #JohnniesBite— Pocket_Money (@jacobAmarquaye1) January 12, 2023
Following the resignation of two ministers, Dailyguide has reported that the Akufo-Addo-led administration may soon undergo a reorganization of its cabinet.
The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Owusu Afriyie Akoto tendered in a resignation from his role as state minister on Tuesday, following the resignation of the Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen some few days ago.
According to Daily Guide, even though the President had on several platforms justified the inclusion of his ministerial team, the pullout of the two ministers has made it inevitable to reshuffle the team with possible merging of some ministries.
It is also expected that, Water and Sanitation will be collapsed with Sanitation joining Local Government and Water Resources going back to Works and Housing.
Per the article published by the Daily Guide, unconfirmed sources revealed that former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu may make his way to join the government.
The source also revealed that, the reshuffle may affect the MP for Abetifi and former Minister of State for National Security, Bryan Acheampong, who have been tipped for the Agric and Transport Ministries as well as National Security.
Legal Practitioner, Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, has asked government to gather mettle and acknowledge the blame of the current emergency the Ghanaian economy is confronting instead of fault the worldwide emergency.
According to him, the current government’s incompetence is why the country has colossal debt despite having more revenue sources than any other government since 1957.
Speaking on TV3’s big issues, he said this government should man up and take responsibility for the failure of the economy instead of engaging in blame game.
“What is our total debt today? Do you know by their reason of incompetent management of the exchange rate, they added 98 billion Ghana cedis to our public debt? So please stop globalizing your incompetence, face the fact, man up and say that look I have been irresponsible for the debt situation and that is why we are here.”
Edudzi Tamaklo said there is much expectation from this government because of the excess revenue they have made in the last 6 years in government.
“Do you know that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government have gotten more revenue than all administration since 1957? In fact, by the time NDC left office, the overall financial revenue sources available to the NDC in 8 years was 248 billion Ghana cedis, as I speak to you within the space of 6 years this government, if you put loans, grants, and tax revenue together, this government has gotten in excess of 560 billion just in six years. The bible says to whom much is given much is expected. In the midst of plenty, you have run us aground, what to do is to demonstrate humility,” he said in the interview.
