STAY OUT OF PARTISAN POLITICS ...Akologu urges heads of MMDAs (PAGE 13, OCT 28, 2010)

The Minister of Information, Mr John Tia Akologu, has re-echoed an advise to heads of ministries, departments, and agencies to stay out of partisan politics and to be as politically neutral as possible.
He reiterated that when public and civil servants openly participated in political activities they compromised the objectivity of their offices.
Mr Akologu therefore appealed to them to be committed, loyal and impartial in the discharge of their duties.
The minister made the call when he interacted with heads of departments as part of his three-day official visit of the Upper East Region to familiarise and ascertain the operations and problems of the agencies under the ministry of information.
The tour also aimed at communicating government policies and programmes to the staff of district assemblies, traditional rulers and sections of the public, as well as encourage public sector workers to put in their maximum efforts towards the attainment of the “Better Ghana” agenda.
During his interaction with the heads of departments, the Information Minister advised them not to just concentrate on their daily paperwork and filing of reports to their head offices in Accra but also open their doors to the media in the region to try to educate the public on the essence of the several interventions being put in by the government.
He said although the politician would carry the message to the people, the same message on development projects being embarked on by the government would carry more weight and meaning if delivered by the technical persons in charge of a department or an agency.
He assured the heads of departments that past vindictiveness where civil and public servants were removed from office at will had been stopped, adding that past government officials perceived to be corrupt had been sent to court for the due process to establish the said corruption.
“Even though the decisions of the courts are sometimes questionable, government has decided to abide by those decisions,” he said.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, who was present at the meeting advised heads of departments to create special budget lines for P ublic relations and media campaigns to propagate their programmes, since communication played a key role in governance.
Earlier, the minister paid a courtesy call on the Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, and the Paramount Chief of Bolgatanga, Naaba Martin Abilba.
The Regional Minister, a media man himself, lauded the media in the region for deepening the relationship that existed but expressed concern at the activities of a few especially when it came to reporting on the conflict situation in the Bawku area.
He admonished journalists who report on conflicts to base their write-ups on facts in order not to inflame passions.

BANKS URGED TO MAKE THEIR OPERATIONS MORE ATTRACTIVE TO CUSTOMERS (SPREAD, OCT 27, 2010)

THE Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, has appealed to the leadership of banks and other financial institutions operating in the region to relax some of the rules and regulations governing their operations, where possible, so that their services will become more attractive to the people in the area.
He said the introduction of those innovative products would not only take care of the majority of people but also improve the lifestyles of individuals, which could in turn quicken the general development of the area.
Mr Woyongo said this in a speech read on his behalf by the District Chief Executive for Kassena-Nankana East, Mr Emmanuel Andema, during the official opening of the Navrongo branch of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB).
“In situations where majority of our people in a particular area are poor, banking institutions should not just concern themselves with providing only banking services but also play a lead role in the general socio-economic development of the people,” he observed.
He said the Kassena-Nankana East District had a lot of potential as far as agriculture was concerned and cited the existence of the Tono Irrigation facility, which he said opened a lot of opportunities to individuals and groups who would want to venture into all- year-round large- scale farming involving the cultivation of rice, tomato, pepper and other crops.
Mr Woyongo expressed the hope that the services to be provided by the bank would, in no small measure, help boost the efforts at food production.
The Managing Director of ADB, Mr Stephen Kpordzih, said the opening of the new branch in Navrongo was to have its services on the doorstep of the people and help reduce poverty.
He reiterated the expectation that the bank would remain the most competitive in respect of lending rates, particularly to the agriculture sector.
Mr Kpordzih noted that the three regions of the north offered huge potential for increased production of food, industrial and export crops, poultry and livestock, so expanding ADB’s reach in the area meant a greater boost for agribusiness, including transportation, storage, preservation, warehousing, input distribution and marketing.
The opening of the new branch, he said, was a testimony of the bank’s commitment to expanding its reach to its valued clients in the northern parts of the country.
He, therefore, urged customers of the bank and prospective ones to take advantage of the various products in existence and future ones to do business with ADB for their mutual benefit.

WOMAN'S BODY FOUND FLOATING (BACK PAGE, OCT 26, 2010)

THE body of an 18-year-old woman who had been declared missing has been found floating under a bridge on the Bolgatanga-Zuarungu road.
Augustina Anyeema had been declared missing the previous day before her floating body was seen on Sunday near the offices of the Metro Mass Transit Company at about 6 a.m.
Augustina, a resident of Daportindongo, a suburb of Bolgatanga, was said to have left home the previous day.
A close relative told the Daily Graphic that the family was suspicious about the circumstances of her death and wondered why she had gone that far since their house was quite a distance from where the body was found.
“We were surprised this morning when we had the information that the body of our daughter had been found under this bridge. We were surprised because where we live is far from this river and she is not known to like swimming,” the family member said.
The deceased was wearing a shirt and a pair of blue jeans shorts, both of which were intact at the time she was found floating. The body had since been deposited at the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital mortuary for autopsy.

ASSEMBLY PROCURES 1,500 DESKS FOR SCHOOLS (PAGE 22, OCT 23, 2010)

THE Bawku Municipal Assembly has procured 1,500 dual desks to be distributed to some schools in the area. This is to address the acute shortage of furniture in schools in the municipality.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Bawku, Mr Abdulai Musah made this known to the Daily Graphic after visiting some primary schools in the municipality.
During the tour, it came to light that furniture in the primary schools was grossly inadequate. At least in two of the four schools visited, namely Zuabuliga and Tes-Natinga primary schools, pupils sat on the bare floor for their lessons.
Teachers who spoke to the Daily Graphic appealed to the assembly to provide their schools with furniture.
They also bemoaned the inadequate number of teachers and called on the authorities to post trained teachers to the schools.
The Zuabuliga Primary School has two trained teachers and three untrained teachers while the Tes-Natinga Primary School has only volunteer teachers.
Other schools the MCE visited were the Buabula Municipal Assembly (M/) Primary School and Aniisi Primary School.
Mr Abdulai stated that the problem of lack of furniture had persisted over the years and it was against that background that the current assembly was working hard to provide schools with classrooms and furniture to build a vibrant and enlightened human resource base.
He said through hard work, the assembly had abolished classes done under trees in the municipality, adding that the assembly, together with the Municipal Education Directorate, was working hard to get trained teachers to fill the classrooms.
In all the four schools visited, the MCE presented a total of 2,874 exercise books to be distributed to the pupils in Upper Primary while those in lower primary, especially the newly admitted ones and those in tattered clothes, were given a total of 97 school uniforms.
Mr Abdulai addressed the pupils and urged them to take their studies seriously.
He assured them that the government would do everything possible to create a better teaching and learning environment for them to study.

ESTABLISH NHIS OFFICE IN GARU-TEMPANE (PAGE 63, OCT 25, 2010)

The District Chief Executive for Garu-Tempane in the Upper East Region, Mr David Adakudugu, has expressed concern about the long delay in the establishment of a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the district.
According to him, the lack of an independent scheme in the district, which was carved out of the Bawku Municipality over four years ago, had affected enrolment of subscribers unto the scheme.
As a result of the lack of a scheme in the district, residents from the district have to travel to Bawku to subscribe to the NHIS. However, due to the unstable security situation in Bawku, many residents in Garu-Tempane have not had the chance to subscribe to the scheme for fear of their lives .
The DCE who was speaking at the launch of a special mass registration exercise in the district, therefore, called on the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to open a scheme office in the district.
Hundreds of people who have been denied the opportunity to register under the NHIS turned out to partake in the three-day exercise.
Giving an overview of the mass registration exercise, the Regional Manager of the NHIA, Mr Roger Ayine Aposs, said as part of the initiatives to reach out to more Ghanaians who would otherwise not have time to visit the offices to register with the schemes, his outfit had embarked on the exercise to go to the subscribers to ensure that many more people were enrolled.
He said the exercise would also give those whose cards had expired an opportunity to renew their membership to enable them to benefit from efficient and quality health care services.
Mr Aposs gave the assurance that all clients registered during that mass registration period would receive their NHIS ID cards within one month of registration and that a temporal data entry centre had been set up in the regional office of the NHIA to clear all the backlog.
This is to ensure the quick processing of data from the special registration exercise.
He said a similar exercise would be undertaken in the Talensi-Nabdam District, which also did not have a scheme office.
Touching on the performance of the scheme in the region, Mr Aposs said as of October 18, 2010, GH¢1,306,905.69 had been released to schemes to settle their indebtedness with the health service providers.
He said the NHIS coverage in the region had been very encouraging with the Builsa scheme having about 80 per cent coverage.
The Kassena-Nankana District has recorded 78 per cent coverage while the Bongo and Bawku-West districts have covered about 78 and 68 per cent of registration respectively.
He outlined a number of plans earmarked by the NHIA to deal with the problems that confronted the operations of the scheme in the region.
These included regular stakeholders engagement aimed at resolving impasse on tariffs, breach of protocol and training of staff on monitoring and evaluation tools, and providing ICT supports to fast track registration unto the scheme.
The Bawku scheme manager, Mr Mahamadu Akugri, said efforts to increase membership onto the scheme had been continuously hampered by the Bawku conflict, the large coverage area, the lack of commitment by some community mobilisers and low number of suitably qualified personnel, among others.
He appealed to community members to take advantage of the mass registration exercise to get enrolled onto the scheme.
A resident of the area, Mr Abraham Anyande, said due to the delay in the processing of the cards and the distance one had to cover to get registered, most residents in the district had given up on the NHIS.
He, therefore, welcomed the mass registration exercise and urged the scheme operators to find solutions to the difficulties in obtaining their registration cards.

Frustration Galore - For Fresh SHS Students(Junior Graphic, October 20-26,2010. page 6)

.....................A tour of some schools revealed that none of the new structure started to accommodate first year students have been completed. At the Bolgatanga Girls Senior High School, the Headmistress, Ms. Francisca Yizura told this reporter that the school had put in steps to accommodate all first year students from outside the region while those within the Bolgatanga Municipality will be admitted as Day students. In all the school is expecting 322 newly admitted students.
The Headmistress indicated that works on the ground floor of a new classroom structures will soon be completed for the girls to start using them for academic work. In addition, the new administration block is almost completed and it is likely so the teachers and non-teaching staff will soon move into it, to enable the school authorities convert the old staff common room into classrooms for studies.
At the Bolgatanga Senior High School, the Head master, Mr. , Didacus Afegra who is also the Regional Vice chairman for CHASS , said his school which is has been designated as a model school did not benefit from the allocation of new classroom and dormitory structures provided by Government to accommodate first year student, for the 2010-2011 Academic year.As a result the school has had to convert the Assembly Hall as dormitory, while the science laboratory and the Technical block have been turned into classroom facilities.
However at the Notre Dame Senior High School, in the Kassena-Nankana East District, the contractor working on a Six classroom block and toilet and urinal facility has completed and handed the structure to the Regional Minister for onward handing over to the school authorities.
The Principal of the Bolgatanga Technical Institute, Alhaji Umar Alhassan said he is looking forward to admitting 600 first year student but unfortunately work a new classroom block is uncompleted. As a stop gap measure, the students will be housed in the already dilapidated dining hall. He added that any available space will also be used as classroom block.

ASSOCIATION ASSISTS 4 UPPER EAST COMMUNITIES (PAGE 22, OCT 19, 2010)

THE UK branch of BONABOTO, a union of citizens of Bolgatanga, Nabdam, Bongo and Tongo, has presented 130 computers and their accessories worth £52,000 to three Senior High Schools (SHS), three resource centres and the Bolgatanga Regional Library.
The items, which included monitors, CPUs, and two printers, are to be distributed to the Bongo SHS, Zuarungu SHS and Kongo SHS.
The other beneficiaries are the Bolgatanga, Bongo and Tongo Resource Centres.
Presenting the items, a member of BONABOTO in the UK, Mr Nyeya Yen said, “In this modern era of super information highway, it is rather sad that many of the schools in the region lacked computers to compete in the information communication technology world”.
He advised the beneficiary students to make good use of the facility to improve their academic work in school.
Mr Yen, who was assisted by the Secretary of the BONABOTO UK, Mr David Atugiya Ayinne, urged the management of the schools to be mindful of the culture of maintenance to prolong the life span of the computers.
He also appealed to the government, politicians and all stakeholders in education to ensure that children in the area received quality education.
“We BONABOTO UK are conscious of the hardships that our people face. We call on our Members of Parliament (MPs) to use their common fund to support brilliant students who due to deprivation, could not attend school.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, who facilitated the transportation of the items from the ports to the region, commended BONABOTO UK for the foresight and said his administration would do all it could to improve education in the area.
He urged students to eschew all acts of indiscipline and student demonstrations with their attendant destruction of school property as had been recorded in recent times in some schools in the region.
The regional minister warned that those caught for committing such crimes would be dealt with according to the laws of the land.
Mr Woyongo also spoke about steps being taken to provide adequate infrastructure to accommodate students under the new three-year SHS educational system, and called for co-operation from all and sundry.
The Bongo District Director of Education, Mr Francis Agyeere, appealed to the donors to extend their support to the basic school level as ICT education was now an examinable subject, but unfortunately, most schools in the area did not have access to computers.
He also appealed to the district assembly to ensure that all schools in the area received the necessary computer laboratories for the effective teaching and learning of ICT.
A renowned Catholic Priest and founder of BONABOTO, Monsignor Roger Aboteyuure, also commended members of the UK branch of the union for their selfless spirit and dedication to help their counterparts at home.
He explained that BONABOTO was not a tribal, religious or political organisation, but a group interested in seeking the welfare of people from the four towns—namely, Bolgatanga, Nabdam, Bongo and Tongo.
The Paramount Chief for Bongo, Naba Salifu Alemyarum, stressed that since education is key to the development of every society, the traditional authority would support every effort to improve education delivery in the district.