177 Cuban doctors to rescue health sector

The Health Ministry is counting on over one hundred and seventy Cuban doctors to take care of patients in need of medical attention at the major public hospitals across the country.

This forms part of government’s emergency plan as the Ghana Medical Association has withdrawn their services for the past three weeks demanding their conditions of service.

Addressing a news conference on Tuesday, Health Minister Alex Segbefia said the Cuban doctors will take care of the pressure at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.

He said there are already sixteen Cuban doctors in the rural areas, but will be transferred to Accra and Kumasi where the impact of the strike is gravely felt.

The Health Minister also revealed that retired doctors will also start work next week to also help other medical officers in the hospitals take care of emergencies and outpatients.

Alex Segbefia added that the retired doctors who will be engaged on contractual basis would help with supervision and training of physician assistant and house doctors.

“The retired doctors are more than willing to take up the task to save the health sector,” he stressed

Source: adomonline.com

Bawumia uncovers 76,000 Togolese in Ghana's voter roll

Voter rolls of Ghana and Togo in enhanced photo

New Patriotic Party's (NPP) 2016 Vice Presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed that a team commissioned by the party to go into Ghana’s voter register has identified 76,286 persons with the same data in both Ghana and Togo’s voter register.

Dr. Bawumia, speaking at a widely publicized press conference in Accra on Tuesday, said the party’s team identified this suspected anomaly after comparing Ghana’s register with that of Togo.

These persons, he said, were mostly found in the Volta region with Ketu South cited as one of the constituencies where the anomalies are abound.

What made the team suspicious, he said, was the fact that pictures that accompanied the names in Ghana’s album were never taken from a ‘live environment’ but instead were scanned photographs thus suggesting the holders of the card were never present at the registration centres to register.

“What is damming is that many of the pictures were not taken from a live environment but rather scanned… we have examples from Ketu South where entire pictures were scanned and you will see staple marks depicting they were attached to documents…,” he said.

Dr. Bawumia’s presentation follows several calls from the rank and file of the opposition party for the EC to compile a new voters register ahead of the 2016 elections.

Their claim, Dr. Bawumia said, was earlier based on the conviction that the register is ‘incurably flawed’ intimating that it does not qualify to be used for next year’s crucial elections.

At the conference attended by various party bigwigs including party flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, party chairman, Paul Afoko, General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong, former trades Minister, Alan Kyeremanteng and a host of others, Dr. Bawumia said he could not comprehend how persons with same data could get into both Ghana and Togo's voters registers.

“The question, therefore, is how these scanned pictures got into the EC register…it is not a document we can rely on for free, fair, transparent elections…,” he said.

The identification of such persons, he said, only forms ten percent of the party’s inquiry into Ghana’s voters register, promising that the NPP is scheduled to present more shocking revelations from the voters register.

Ghana’s voters register, he said, would also be compared to that of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

To help tackle this problem and make the next election more credible, Dr. Bawumia suggested that the Electoral Commission of Ghana compiles a new voters register by June 2016, saying the Commission should give Ghanaians a new Permanent Voters Card (PVC) as was done in Nigeria.

He further suggested that the EC grants a period of two weeks for the registration to be carried out simultaneously across the country.

The new compiled voters register, he said, should be edited by internationally reputed audit firms and all political parties given copies.

Source: adomonline.com

Blockheaded NPP is simply being mischievous - Gen Mosquito

The Chief Scribe of the ruling National Democratic Congress [NDC], Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah says the opposition NPP’s calculations which informed its opinion that the register is flawed were based on faulty presumptions.

According to him, one can deduce either pure mischief from the NPP’s calculation or simply a display of low intelligence [blockheadedness] with the intention to deceive Ghanaians.

The New Patriotic Party [NPP] has argued that with a voter population of about 14 million, Ghana has a questionable and statistically indefensible rate of 56 percent of its population being above 18 years.

But Asiedu Nketiah on Okay FM is convinced that this calculation is itself statistically challenged because the 2010 population census based on which the NPP made its calculation is inaccurate.

He enumerated that in order for the NPP’s calculations to be acceptable, they have to base their computation on the 2012 population; adding it is wrong to compare the number of people in 2010 to that of the 2012 voters register.

He further explained that “if per the 2010 census population is pegged at 25 million and for that reason 12.5 million people were eligible to vote then, it does not mean in 2012 eligible Ghanaian voters should not reach 14 million. Are they saying no Ghanaian reached the voting age between 2010 and 2012 for the country to have nearly 14 million eligible voters?”

He, therefore, surmised that it is "either the NPP is acting so dead-set in their ways to do such calculations, or it is a deliberate attempt to deceive Ghanaians by playing mischief.”
Source:ghanaweb.com

Bimbilla update: Butchers resume work

Heavy security in Bimbilla, last week. Photo: Geoffrey Buta

The butchers at Bimbilla have resumed the sale of meat after a meeting with the District Security Council, days after a misunderstanding between them the Regent sparked troubles in the area and left about 19 people dead.

An order to stop some of the butchers from using the abattoir for failing to present a portion of their meat to the regent of Bimbilla led to the shooting incidents.

The abattoir had been closed since the incident until the eve of the Eid-ul-Fitr festivities.

A journalist with Gmantambo radio in Bimbilla, Mohammed Ameenu Alabira told Citi News that the butchers have all resumed their duties amid heavy security presence.

He added that school children are yet to return to school after the incident even though schools haven’t officially been closed.

“The schools are still closed. I spoke with some headmasters and they said they will go to school to see if the children will come. But some parents are saying the place is still not safe so they will not allow their children to go to school.”

Mohammed Ameenu Alabira also said the district education directorate had told him that they “cannot also guarantee the safety of the children so they are still monitoring events and will meet later to take a decision on the matter.”

Source:citifmonline.com

Ghanaian pupil tops basic school exams in Italy

An official of the Santa Lucia education directorate (second left) presenting a certificate to pupil

A 13-year-old Ghanaian pupil is making waves in Santa Lucia, a district in the Italian city of Verona, after emerging the best student in the district basic school examination.

Master Emmanuel Sarpong Agyeman emerged tops in the Esame Di Stato examination, the equivalent of Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in Ghana.

According to reports, what was surprising to many was that Emmanuel did not start nursery school in Verona. He arrived in Verona in

June 2011 and started primary or elementary school at the final stage in Class Five.

The primary system in Italy is not six years as it is in Ghana.

At the end of the third year, the final examination is based on Mathematics, Science, English and Italian.

After that, the international students are asked to write essays on their home countries while their Italian counterparts write on topics including water and the earth.

The students then present their essays to a panel.

Apart from Italian students, this year’s examination involved students from such countries as Ghana, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Romania, India and Senegal.

Emmanuel, the son of a former Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) administrative officer, Mrs Mabel Offin-Agyeman, presented a 24-page paper on Ghana to the panel.

He has been in Italy for four years but emerged the overall best student and was the only Black student among the 35 best students selected from all the 35 provinces of Verona.

Emmanuel told the Daily Graphic in a telephone interview that although he loved to study, he had not expected the award.

“I feel happy. But for me the award isn't the only result of my hard work. I never thought of getting awards because the important thing is to study.

“I have always liked studying and always tried to get excellent results. I have done this because I wanted to,” he added.

He said the award would inspire him to work harder to achieve higher laurels.

An elated Mrs Offin-Agyeman said it was a humbling honour.

“I’m humbled. I have been studying the language too. It is not easy to learn and understand it, but for my son to have, within four years, learnt it, understood it and passed his examination with distinction, the hand of God is in it.

“It is humbling what God can do. I am very happy. He had distinction in all the subjects,” she said.

Source: Graphic.com.gh

GACL apologizes for interruption in water supply at the airport

Ghana Airport Company limited

The Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has apologized to the travelling public and other stakeholders for the interruption in water supply at the airport on Sunday, July 19, 2015.

In a statement issued in Accra, Management said the interruption was due to a major damage to one of the main pipelines supplying water to the terminal building which has since been fixed and water supply restored.

The statement assured the general public and other stakeholders that measures have been put in place to forestall any future occurrence as part of the ongoing infrastructural improvements at the airport.

Source: Ghana Airports Company Limited

Doctors issue another notice of mass resignation

Doctors at work

The Ghana Medical Association has served strong notice that its members may be compelled to resign en masse in the coming days if negotiations with the government continue to move at a slow pace.

According to them, they are unhappy with the current state of negotiations with the government over the drafting of their conditions of service.

The GMA had earlier this month deferred its intended mass resignation to give the government more time to finalize the preparation of a document containing their conditions of service.

Speaking to Citi News, the Deputy General Secretary of the GMA, Dr. Justice Yankson called on the government to speed up the process of producing the document or face the consequences.

“In terms of negotiations, some activities have taken place but unfortunately by way of progress very little or none. We are not happy with what is happening at the negotiation table, but we are still giving the benefit of the doubt.”

He noted that “our deadline is fast approaching. Between now and then a lot can change. So we are still optimistic that something could be arrived at by way of some negotiated condition of service before that day. Beyond that, I cannot preempt whatever activities except to say that the general assembly spoke and put a road map and we as council or executive committee are mandated to follow that.”

“The stakeholders are aware of everything that transpired from last year till now so we had made our case known to the government negotiation team and we are waiting for their responses,” Dr. Yankson added.

Source:citionline.com