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3 Drug suspects granted bail

2011-12-01T01:27:00.000-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, December 1, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Accra Fast Track High Court has granted bail to three persons, including two journalists, for illegal possession of substances suspected to be narcotics.
Patrick Osei Agyemang, alias Countryman Songo, host of ‘Fire for Fire’, a popular sports programme on Asempa Radio; Bismark Selorm of Happy FM and host of the morning show on eTV, and Franklin Ayensu were granted bail in the sum of GH¢10,000 with one surety each by Justice A. Ofori-Atta.
Their pleas were not taken.
They are to reappear on December 9, 2011.
The Nima District Police Commander, DSP Justice Aduhene-Benieh, told the Daily Graphic after proceedings in court yesterday that the accused were making efforts to fulfil the conditions of the bail.
He said a State Attorney would assume full prosecution of the case at the next adjourned date.
The two journalists, in the company of five others, were arrested by a police patrol team in Accra during the early hours of Monday for allegedly possessing substances suspected to be narcotic drugs.
The three were charged for the offence after a screening exercise by the police.

Mobilla's trial adjourned to Dec 6

2011-11-30T01:47:00.000-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 30, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE case in which three soldiers are being tried for the murder of Alhaji Issa Mobilla, a former Northern Regional Chairman of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), was yesterday adjourned to December 6, 2011 to enable the prosecution to file a supplementary affidavit in support of an application for the court to grant it (prosecution) leave to file additional evidence in the case.
When the case was called for the prosecution to move its application, a Chief State Attorney, Ms Penelope Mamattah, prayed the Fast Track High Court, presided over by Mr Justice Mustapha Logoh, to grant her a short adjournment to enable her to file a supplementary affidavit.
She said the state wanted justice and the truth to come out, hence the need for all the requisite information and evidence required to be allowed to be filed.
However, counsel for the accused persons, Mr Thaddeus Sory, opposed the adjournment on the grounds that the case had unnecessarily been delayed due to frequent adjournments at the request of the prosecution.
He noted that two of the accused persons had been in custody for more than six years without pay.
Two of the soldiers, Corporal Yaw Appiah and Private Eric Modzaka, are standing trial for allegedly murdering Alhaji Mobilla. A third soldier, Private Seth Goka, is, however, being tried in absentia.
Mr Sory, therefore, asked the court not to grant the request for adjournment or it be granted alongside bail for the accused persons, since their fundamental human rights had been greatly affected.
He said the Attorney-General’s Office had been given too much laxity in the case and saw the frequent application for adjournment as a ploy to delay the trial.
“My Lord, the accused persons have not been treated fairly in this matter at all,” he added.
Mr Justice Logoh, in adjourning the case to December 6, 2011, conceded that justice delayed was justice denied, while justice hurried was also justice buried.
He said he would not accept any excuses or failures on the next adjourned date.

Court threatens to strike out Obinim's case

2011-11-30T01:43:00.000-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 29, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Accra Circuit Court has threatened to strike out the case in which the founder of God’s Way International Church, Bishop Daniel Obinim, and two of his junior pastors are being prosecuted for allegedly vandalising and attacking the host and panel members of Hot FM, a private radio station in Accra.
When the case was called yesterday, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Mr Reindorf Agyemang, told the court that there was no representation from the Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) Office although a State Attorney, Ms Cynthia Lamptey, had been assigned as the substantive prosecutor after the A-G took over the prosecution.
The judge, Mr Eric Kyei-Baffour, said he was very disappointed in the A-G and that it seemed the A-G was not interested in the case.
“I do not accept delays in my court. If the state prosecutor fails to appear to prosecute the case at the next adjourned date, I will strike it out for want of prosecution,” he said.
He subsequently adjourned the case to December 19, 2011.
The other accused persons are Kofi Akwetteh, 35, and Kingsley Baah, 27.
Bishop Obinim, Pastor Kingsley Baah and Pastor Kofi Akwetteh are jointly facing charges of conspiracy to commit crime, unlawful entry, causing damage to private property and assault.
Bishop Obinim, however, is charged with two additional counts of using an offensive weapon and causing unlawful harm.
They have, however, pleaded not guilty to all the charges and have been admitted to bail in the sum of GH¢50,000 with two sureties each.
The facts of the case are that about 9:40 p.m. on August 8, 2011, there was a programme on Hot Fm, ‘Nya Asem Hwe’, was being hosted by Kwame Ntim Katakyie.
One of the topics being discussed was an alleged sex scandal involving Bishop Obinim, whose name was mentioned in the course of the programme and his alleged tape-recording of the issue played on air.
According to the prosecution, the programme highlighted issues concerning Bishop Obinim’s wife and an associate pastor.
The accused persons, on hearing the issue being discussed, stormed the FM station with a pinch bar and started vandalising the sliding doors and studio equipment, the prosecutor told the court.
Studio equipment destroyed by the accused persons included a voice processor valued at GH¢7,500; telos hybria, GH¢18,000; head phone distributor, GH¢6,000; two CD players, GH¢4,500; three telephone sets, GH¢2,250; one Dell desktop personal computer, GH¢450; one Toshiba laptop, GH¢750, and one Samsung laptop, GH¢1,600.
The rest of the items were one phone, valued at GH¢800; one console, GH¢18,000; one electro voice microphone, GH¢3,750; one microphone stand, GH¢2,250; glass doors, GH¢20,000, and a KFM transmitter, GH¢45,000.
The total cost of all the items was put at GH¢130,850.

Gambila granted bail

2011-11-30T01:40:00.000-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 26, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A FORMER Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Mr Boniface Gambila, was yesterday granted bail in the sum of GH¢500,000 with two sureties by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).
Mr Gambila, who was detained overnight after reporting to the BNI on Thursday, is being investigated for some procurement transactions during his tenure as Director of the NSS between 2002 and 2004.
Sources close to the BNI told the Daily Graphic that the Auditor-General referred the matter to the BNI after an audit of the NSS accounts established that more than GH¢400,000 was not accounted for during Mr Gambila's tenure.
The sources said the deficit was in relation to the procurement of cooking utensils, bicycles and mattresses, among other items, purportedly procured for supply to personnel posted on national service.
According to the sources, although the items were paid for, there was neither evidence of the release of the items to the NSS nor delivery to the beneficiaries.

STX settlement in limbo

2011-11-30T01:39:00.001-08:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, November 25, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE terms of settlement for the amicable resolution of the impasse which continues to stall the government’s STX Housing Project could not be laid before the Accra Commercial Court yesterday.
When the case was called, counsel for STX Korea, Mr Sarfo Buabeng, informed the court that he had forwarded the terms of settlement to Seoul, South Korea, for signatures and he was yet to receive the signed document.
He said although Mr Daniel Juang, a representative of the Korean partners, was in Ghana, he did not have the mandate to sign the document.
“My Lord, it is such an important issue that is beyond the mandate of the representative in Ghana, neither do I have the mandate. I only act on the instructions of my client,” he said.
The latest development compelled the court, presided over by Mrs Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, to give the parties up to December 14, 2011 to file the terms of settlement.
According to the court, failure of the parties to agree and file the terms of settlement would compel the court to either ask that the motion pending before it be moved, withdrawn or be struck out.
At its last sitting on November 15, 2011, the parties informed the court that terms of settlement for an amicable resolution of the impasse had been drawn up for signing and filing at the court.
The terms of settlement are expected to form the basis of the judgement of the court which is hearing the case.
It, therefore, adjourned the case to yesterday for the necessary signing of the document and subsequent filing.
Counsel for the plaintiff, Mr Carl Adongo, expressed the hope that the terms of settlement would have been signed and filed by the next adjourned date.
Although the details of the terms of settlement were not made known, it was gathered that the plaintiff had agreed to pay off all expenses incurred by the Korean partners in the STX deal.
GKA Airports, it was learnt, would also pay off any equity held by the Korean partners, and thereby disengage them from the project.
The suit, filed by GKA Airports Company Limited through its CEO, Mr Bernard Kwabena Asamoah, the man credited with introducing the STX housing project to the government, wanted the court to determine the rightful partner to execute the project.
The plaintiff also sought to sack the Korean partners from the entire project, but the Koreans vowed to resist any attempt to forcibly remove them.
The Koreans were the first to go to court over who owned the company when they sued Mr Asamoah, the Registrar-General and others for allegedly diluting the company’s shares to GKA Airport’s advantage, but the Fast Track High Court, presided over by Justice N.M.C. Abodakpi, adjourned proceedings sine die because the processes to get the case heard were not completed.
Although the President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, cut the sod in January, 2011 for the commencement of the project, boardroom wrangling between the Koreans and their Ghanaian partners have stalled the construction of 200,000 housing units in the country at a cost of $10 billion, starting with 30,000 houses for the security services.

Court adjourns appeal of Ya-Na's case

2011-11-30T01:35:00.000-08:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, November 24, 2011
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Court of Appeal yesterday adjourned indefinitely the case in which the Attorney-General has appealed against the acquittal and discharge of 15 persons accused of killing the Ya-Na and others in March, 2002.
Adjourning the case, the court, presided over by Mr Justice G. M. Owusu with Mr Isaac Duose and Mr Senyo Dzamefe as panel members, said it had been informed by the Registrar that it (registrar) had received a letter from the respondents indicating that they were unaware of the appeal and had also not been served with the process.
A Principal State Attorney, Mrs Evelyn Keelson, who represented the Attorney-General’s Department, confirmed to the court that the respondents had not been served.
The court, therefore, adjourned the case sine die for the respondents to be served with a copy of the appeal notices.
On March 29, 2011, the Accra Fast Track High Court, presided over by Mr Justice E. K. Ayebi, an Appeal Court Judge sitting as an additional High Court judge, acquitted and discharged the 15 accused persons on the grounds that state prosecutors failed to prove a prima facie case against them to warrant them to open their defence on the allegations levelled against them.
The accused persons were charged with conspiracy in the killing of the Overlord of Dagbon, Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II.
They are Iddrisu Iddi, Alhaji Baba Iddrisu Abdulai, Kwame Alhassan, Mohammed Abdulai, Sayibu Mohammed, Alhassan Braimah and the former District Chief Executive (DCE) of Yendi, Alhaji Mohammed Habib Tijani.
The rest are Alhassan Mohammed Braimah, Abukari Nabeli, Mohammed Mustapha, Yakubu Yusif, Abdul Razak Yussif, Shani Imoro, Baba Ibrahim and Ahmed Abukari.
They pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Additionally, the court further discharged one other suspect, Zakaria Yakubu, who was said to be at large and who was facing an additional charge of murdering the Ya-N, for not being part of the trial process.
The decision followed a verdict of not guilty entered by a seven-member jury for all the 15 accused persons.ourt adjourns appeal of Ya-Na’s case

Court orders reinstatement of assistant headmaster

2011-11-30T01:34:00.002-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 24, 2011
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court yesterday ordered the reinstatement of the Assistant Headmaster of the Odorgonno Senior High School to his position at the school.
Mr Lawrence Kwasi Korley was interdicted in August, this year, for allegedly raping Miss Artisi Windoman, an American volunteer at the school. The victim left the country after reporting the matter to the police.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice Essel Mensah, described as wrongful and illegal the purported interdiction of Mr Korley by the Ghana Education Service (GES) when he (Mr Korley) was not given a hearing before his interdiction.
It also asked that all the emoluments the applicant lost while on interdiction be paid to him.
Although the applicant sought GH¢5 million in damages, the court granted the applicant GH¢4,000.
Mr Korley, who was represented by Mr Kay Amoah Jnr, sought a declaration of the court that the letter of interdiction by the GES was wrong and illegal.
It was the case of the applicant that his employers, the GES, interdicted him without any shred of evidence for an allegation of rape.
It was also argued that procedurally, the GES erred by interdicting Mr Korley when he was not given a hearing.
The applicant contended that by the Collective Agreement (CA) as epitomised in the Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers, Mr Korley should have been given a hearing.
Moreover, counsel for Mr Korley argued that his client had neither been charged with any criminal offence nor faced any criminal trial, on which the GES could have based its action to interdict him.
The GES, which was represented by Mr Anthony Boateng, had, in their defence, argued that the interdiction was not punitive but done to safeguard the image of the GES and the country.
It said the GES did not want to create the impression to Ghanaians and the international community that female students and members of staff were unsafe in the midst of male teachers or members of staff.
But, the court in its ruling, upheld the arguments of the applicant, saying that whatever good intention the GES had, it did not follow its own procedural requirements before the interdiction of Mr Korley.

Appeal court adjourns Osei-Adjei’s case

2011-11-30T01:34:00.001-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 23, 2011
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Court of Appeal yesterday adjourned sine die the appeal by a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Akwasi Osei-Adjei, and a former Managing Director of the National Investment Bank (NIB), Mr Daniel Charles Gyimah, against the Fast Track High Court’s order directing them to open their defence on the charges of conspiracy and contravening the Public Procurement Act (PPA) in the importation of rice from India.
The three-member panel, chaired by Mr Justice Yaw Appau, gave the appellants 14 days to file their submission and serve the Attorney-General’s Department.
The Attorney-General’s Department will also be expected to respond to the written submissions of the appellants within 14 days and also serve the appellants.
The Registrar of the court will, on receipt of the written submissions and responses, fix a date for the case to be listed.
Other members of the panel were Justices Isaac Duose and Senyo Dzamefe.
The appellants were represented by Mr Godfred Yeboah Dame, while a Chief State Attorney, Mr Anthony Gyambiby, represented the state.
Although counsel for the appellants and the state were ready to make oral submissions, Mr Justice Appau advised that it was better the submissions were put into writing, in the absence of a recording system at the court.
He explained that it was possible that the judges would not be able to write down every point or issue raised, especially crucial arguments by counsel.
He said the written submissions would, therefore, enable the panel to look at the arguments more thoroughly to pronounce its ruling.
Mr Osei-Adjei and Mr Gyimah, who are each facing two counts of conspiracy and contravening the PPA, were in court.
They have pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against them and have been admitted to bail in the sum of GH¢200,000, with two sureties each to be justified.
In the substantive appeal, the two are appealing to the Court of Appeal to reverse or set aside part of the lower court’s ruling that they had a case to answer on two counts of conspiracy and contravening the PPA.
On February 25, 2011, the Financial Division of the Fast Track High Court acquitted and discharged the two on six counts of conspiracy, wilfully causing financial loss to the state, use of public office for profit and stealing.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice Bright Mensah, however, ordered the two to open their defence on charges of conspiracy and contravening the PPA in the importation of rice from India.
The two are praying the court to set aside the ruling of the lower court and give consequential orders acquitting and discharging them on the two counts.
The grounds of appeal state, among others, that the trial judge placed weight on irrelevant evidence, as well as disregarded the overwhelming evidence of all the prosecution witnesses that there was no use of public funds as defined by the PPA.
According to the appellants, the trial judge also disregarded the evidence of the prosecution that the NIB was not a procurement entity which was required to apply the PPA.
In its ruling on a “submission of no case” filed on behalf of the accused persons, the lower court was of the view that the prosecution had failed to lead evidence to prove that Mr Osei-Adjei and Mr Gyimah wilfully caused financial loss to the state by allegedly acting together to steal 2,997 bags of rice valued at US$1,408,590.
It also upheld the defence team’s argument that the prosecution also failed to prove that the accused persons used public office for profit, as well as conspired to steal, but directed the two to open their defence on two counts of conspiracy and contravening the PPA.
The prosecution called 17 witnesses and closed its case on November 30, 2010. The trial began in October 2009.

Police-Military conflict… ASSAULT ON COPS DAMNED

2011-11-30T01:32:00.000-08:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, November 22, 2011
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police and the Military High commands have condemned the seemingly bad blood between policemen and their military counterparts in Tamale that has resulted in assault and counter-assault by the two sister security agencies.
They have also described the situation as most unfortunate and uncalled for and that it should be condemned in the strongest of terms.
The Northern Regional Police Commander and his counterpart at the Airborne Force have, therefore, been directed to table the issue before the Northern Regional Security Council (REGSEC) for discussion, while investigations are also opened to bring the culprits to book.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that he and the Chief of the Defence Staff, Lt Gen Peter Blay, had held initial discussions last Saturday and yesterday and given instructions on the next line of action to both commands in the Northern Region.
Last Friday, about eight soldiers allegedly beat up three policemen and a community protection assistant of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) while they were on duty directing traffic in Tamale to avenge two purported incidents in which the police also allegedly assaulted soldiers.
The three police victims — Lance Corporal Doris Asante, Lance Corporal Gladys Mensah and Constable Felix Apaana — who were rushed to the Tamale Teaching Hospital, have since been treated and discharged, while the community protection assistant, Abdul-Fatawu Musah, is still on admission.
The incident is reported to have created panic in the Tamale central business district, compelling traders and bystanders to run helter-skelter.
Mr Quaye said there was an urgent need for a thorough investigation to establish the root cause of the problem and find an amicable solution to it.
He said as the military and the police were sister security agencies that had been working together on a number of platforms, including Operation Calm Life, it was important that such indiscipline be halted.
He reminded all security personnel that being in uniform did not place them above the laws of the land.
“The laws of the land do not apply only to ordinary citizens but all security personnel, including policemen. If you fall foul of the law, the law will take its course, as it will with ordinary citizens,” he said.
“We must, therefore, learn to recognise and respect the laws of the land, as well as those regulating the conduct of security personnel. There should be no room for lawlessness and indiscipline,” he stated.

STX partners reach accord

2011-11-30T01:31:00.002-08:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, November 16, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
PARTIES in the legal tussle over who should lead the construction of the government’s STX Housing Project have drawn up terms of settlement for the amicable resolution of the impasse, which has stalled the commencement of the project.
If approved by the parties, the terms of settlement are expected to form the basis of judgement of the Accra Commercial Court, which is hearing the case.
The court, presided over by Mrs Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, therefore, adjourned proceedings to November 24, 2011 for the terms of settlement to be filed by the parties.
Mr Carl Adongo, counsel for G.K.A. Airports Company Limited, plaintiff in the action, told the court at its sitting yesterday that proposals in the form of terms of agreement had been drawn up for consideration by the court.
He said if agreed by parties in the case, the document would be signed by all the stakeholders and filed for consideration by the court before the next adjourned date.
Although the details of the terms of settlement were not made known, it was gathered that the plaintiff had agreed to pay off all expenses by the Korean partners in the STX deal.
G.K.A. Airports, it was learnt, would also pay off any equity held by the Korean partners, and thereby disengage them from the project.
The suit, filed by G.K.A. Airports Company Limited through its CEO, Bernard Kwabena Asamoah, the man credited for introducing the STX housing project to the government, wanted the court to determine the rightful partner to execute the project.
The plaintiff also sought to sack the Korean partners from the entire project but the Koreans vowed to resist any attempt to forcibly remove them.
The Koreans were the first to go to court over who owns the company when they sued Mr Asamoah, the Registrar-General and others for allegedly diluting the company’s shares to GKA Airport’s advantage, but the Fast Track High Court, presided over by Justice N.M.C. Abodakpi, adjourned proceedings sine die because the processes to get the case heard were not completed.
Although the President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, cut the sod in January, 2011 for the commencement of the project, boardroom wrangling between the Koreans and their Ghanaian partners has stalled the construction of 200,000 housing units in the country at a total cost of $10 billion, starting with 30,000 houses for the security services.

Painter jailed 30 years for robbery

2011-11-30T01:31:00.001-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 5, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Circuit Court in Accra yesterday sentenced a 25-year-old painter to 20 years’ imprisonment on charges of conspiracy to rob and robbery.
Ernest Atsipoe-Agbey, the convict, was sentenced to 10 years for conspiracy and 20 years for robbery. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Atsipoe-Agbey pleaded guilty on his first appearance before the court, presided over by Mr Justice Eric Kyei Baffour.
He told the court that he pleaded guilty because he did not want to waste its time and, therefore, asked the judge to deal leniently with him.
Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mr Abraham Annor, said somewhere in May, 2010, the convict and two others entered the complainant’s house at Tuba with a pistol and knives.
He said they met the complainant’s wife who was then sick.
According to Mr Annor, the assailants tied the complainant’s sick wife with a cable wire and made away with a bag containing 7,300 euros and a Nokia phone valued at GH¢35.
He said just when the convict and the others attempted to make bolt for it, two of them were arrested by the police, but the convict managed to escape.
The two others, he said, were currently on trial at a High Court.
Mr Annor said Ernest was later involved in another robbery incident at the Madina Police Station where he was identified.
He was later taken to the CID Headquarters and after interrogation was charged for court.

Issa Mobilla’s case adjourned to Nov 9

2011-11-30T01:29:00.000-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, November 2, 2011
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Fast Track High Court trying three soldiers for the murder of Alhaji Issa Mobilla, a former Northern Regional Chairman of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), yesterday adjourned to November 9, 2011, to enable the prosecutor to refresh her mind on the case.
The adjournment followed a request from the prosecutor, Mrs Penelope Mamattah, a Principal State Attorney, who told the court, presided over Mr Justice Mustapha Habib Logo, that she just resumed and would like to study the case docket for the facts and events that had taken place since February, this year.
Mrs Mamattah is the main prosecutor in the case, but a Chief State Attorney, Mrs Merley Wood, stood in her stead while she was away.
Moreover, she explained that some witnesses the prosecution was expecting to testify had not shown up and, therefore, an adjournment would enable the prosecution to arrange for the witnesses to be present at the next adjourned date.
Counsel for the accused, Mr Thaddeus Sory, did not object to the request.
Corporal Yaw Appiah, Private Eric Modzaka and Private Seth Goka have been accused of the murder of Alhaji Mobilla. Goka, who is on the run, is being tried in absentia.
Appiah and Modzaka have pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiracy and murder of Alhaji Mobilla.
The two, who have been in custody for the past five years, were brought from Tamale to face trial in Accra in early 2010. Nine witnesses were called before the foreman of the jury fell ill, a situation which compelled the court to replace him.
That action sparked a sharp disagreement from counsel for the accused persons, who argued that in law the replacement of the juror meant that the case had started afresh.
Subsequently, a new seven-member jury was constituted to hear the case afresh before a new judge, Mr Justice Logo.
So far, five witnesses have been called since the trial started afresh.

Couple gets 50 years for stealing

2011-11-30T01:27:00.000-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic November 1, 2011.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Financial Division of the Accra High Court yesterday sentenced a couple to a total of 50 years imprisonment after finding them guilty for stealing and abetment of crime.
While Linda Edzidor, a former teller of ECOBANK Ghana Limited, was found guilty on 94 counts of stealing and misappropriating GH¢713,896 belonging to three clients of the bank, her husband, Joshua Edzidor, was found guilty on three counts of abetment of crime and dishonestly receiving.
They both pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice Bright Mensah, sentenced the couple to 25 years’ imprisonment each on all the counts to run concurrently.
A number of vehicles, including four taxis, a Toyota Camry and a Ford Escape, currently in the custody of the bank and various sums of money in the accounts of the convicts, including that of a company, Strong Foundation, are to be confiscated to the bank.
Although counsel for the defence, Mr J. K. Yeboah, pleaded for leniency before sentence was passed, on the grounds that the couple were the parents of two toddlers, the presiding judge noted that they did not show any sign of remorse during the trial and at times wanted to prove that their statements to the police had been made under duress.
Mr Justice Mensah said the prosecution, in addition to a committal agreement signed by Mr Edzidor to the bank during the initial investigations by the bank to refund the money, was able to convince him that the convicts had to face the requisite punishment prescribed under the law for such an offence.
The facts of the case, as presented by Mrs Evelyn Keelson, a Principal State Attorney, were that between May 2010 and October 2010, three clients of the Ring Road branch of the bank — the headquarters of the Church of Pentecost, the La District of the Church of Pentecost and T. F. Financial Services — reported some unauthorised withdrawals in their accounts to the bank.
The withdrawals, she said, were: Church of Pentecost headquarters, GH¢655,526; La District of the Church of Pentecost, GH¢31,120, and T. F. Financial Services, GH¢27,250.
She said initial investigations by the bank showed that the unauthorised withdrawals had been done by Mrs Edzidor, who had then been in the employment of the bank for four years.
She said it was detected that Mrs Edzidor had performed 8,000 transactions within the period under scrutiny, using her bank code, including the three accounts in dispute.
According to Mrs Keelson, instead of using cheques for the withdrawals, since they were company accounts, it was detected that the first names of unknown persons had been used by Mrs Edzidor to effect the withdrawals.
She said Linda went into hiding when she was called by her superiors to explain the withdrawals, until her husband volunteered to bring her for a meeting with the bank’s officials and also promised to refund any money misappropriated by his wife.
Mrs Keelson said Mr Edzidor had admitted during investigations that he had sought financial assistance from his wife to enable him to conduct his business.
She said as a result of that, Mrs Edzidor, who was on a GH¢450 a month salary, started making the unauthorised withdrawals to support her husband.

Customs disputes FABAG'S claims. But FABAG hits back

2010-09-03T00:08:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, September 3, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority has disputed claims by the Food and Beverages Association of Ghana (FABAG) that Ghana is losing an estimated $40 million annually due to smuggling of rice into the country.
According to the division, there seemed to be conjectures and a deliberate distortion of figures by the FABAG in a bid to portray the Customs division in a bad light and also to serve the interest of the association.
It, therefore, challenged the FABAG to substantiate its allegations.
Reacting to the Wednesday, September 1, 2010 publication of the Daily Graphic in which the FABAG raised alarm about the activities of rice smugglers and their effect on revenue generation and business in Ghana, the head of Client Service Unit of Customs, Chief Collector Robert Mensah, said "the so-called 350,000 metric tonne rice imports did not give a time frame for such imports nor did it indicate the basis for determining how 100,000 metric tonnes of it are smuggled".
He said the FABAG did not also give a clear indication of how the $40 million revenue loss was calculated in terms of duty rates over the period, considering the fact that at various times in the past few years tariffs had varied from zero-rated to 20 per cent import duty in accordance with the government’s trade policy.
With tables and figures to support the position of Customs, Mr Mensah said rice imports from 2007 to August 2010 amounted to 2,770,348.28 metric tonnes with GH¢378.71 million paid as tax revenue, adding that for the year 2009 only, 779,125.38 metric tonnes of rice was imported with GH¢112.79 million paid as tax.
"Comparing the 2009 figures to 2008 and August 2010 figures, it is discernible that despite lower volumes in metric tonnes, duty collected in the two years was higher and this is explained by the fact that the government removed duty on imported rice in May 2007 and re-introduced it in January 2010," he said.
Mr Mensah said a total of 781,847.73 metric tonnes of rice was admitted for consumption in 2009 with GH¢97.29 million taxes paid while 1,001,848.90 metric tonnes of rice was admitted for consumption in 2008 with GH¢106.06 million paid as taxes.
As of August 2010, he said, 207,526.27 metric tonnes of rice had been admitted for consumption with a total of GH¢62.59 million paid as taxes.
"Thus, whereas importers took advantage of the zero-rated incentive to import more rice in 2008-2009, with the introduction of the rice tariff of 20 per cent in 2010, the volumes imported have reduced, yet the government obtains higher revenue," he added.
Mr Mensah said a closer look at developments at the Elubo border indicated a similar trend as more rice was imported in 2009 due to the zero-rated tax with GH¢1.90 million paid as duty whereas in 2010 for the period up to August, almost the same volumes have been imported but this time with a higher revenue yield of GH¢3.69 million.
According to him, the facts on the ground prove beyond doubt that imports increased over the years in Elubo despite the so-called manipulations and lower duty rates that had been alleged by the FABAG.
Touching on the incidence of smuggling, he said it was undeniable that with the nature of Ghana's borders characterised by waterways, jungles, mountains and ranges, as well as numerous farms and pathways, certain levels of smuggling occurred.
"Despite the shortcomings and incidence of smuggling, it is inconceivable to assert that as much as 100,000 metric tonnes of rice could be smuggled in and how such quantities could be ferried whether by road, waterway or footpath," he said.
Mr Mensah reminded members of the FABAG that there was a glut on the market and that was compounded by good harvest of maize and yam, stressing that "the way forward is not to contrive figures and scenarios to run down state institutions".
He also reminded the FABAG that freight alone on their imports increased their cost as against those who used the western corridors with less expensive mode of transportation.
Earlier at a press conference, the FABAG had reiterated its earlier position with their spokesperson, Mr John Awuni, saying that the disparity in tariff structure between Ghana and its neighbours was a major contributory factor to the woes of importers using the Tema port.
He, therefore, called on the government to push for uniformity in the tariff structure in ECOWAS countries as the prevailing system created room for abuse.
Mr Awuni said failure on the part of the government to address the challenges would result in job losses for legitimate importers and revenue loss to the state.
He said the quest to promote local rice consumption would also suffer since consumers would prefer the cheap imported perfumed rice and cited the problem of tomato farmers to illustrate his point.

Massive rice smuggling: $40m DOWN THE DRAIN

2010-09-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, September 1, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
GHANA is said to be losing an estimated $40 million annually as a result of rice smuggled into the country.
Estimates compiled by the Food and Beverages Association of Ghana, for presentation to the Ministry of Trade, indicate that 100,000 metric tonnes out of the 350,000 metric tonnes of rice imported into the country are smuggled in, causing the country the millions of dollars in tax revenue.
The resort to the smuggling of rice is attributed to the high duty and other tariffs being implemented at Ghana’s ports as against the country’s West African neighbours.
In that smuggling adventure, Elubo, Debiso, Nkrankwanta, Dadieso and Enchi border areas are the most frequently used to bring in the 100,000 metric tonnes; 75,000 metric tonnes of which are described as high value perfumed rice.
The finding of the association, made up of about 20 local entrepreneurs, also revealed that rice sales for 2010 dropped by 25 per cent.
It also noted that duty on imported rice in Cote d’Ivoire was 12.5 per cent with no Valued Added Tax (VAT), while “On the contrary, importers in Ghana have to pay 20 per cent customs duty in addition to 12.5 per cent VAT and 2.5 per cent National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) in addition to other levies totalling 40 per cent.
“So the inherent difference of 22.5 per cent in the landing cost of imported rice in the respective countries works to the advantage of the traders involved in the smuggling,” they added.
They explained that there was a difference to the tune of GH¢7 between a perfumed 25kg bag smuggled rice and the legally imported one.
According to them, the traders involved in the trade are able to manage the direct cost by manipulating the duty at the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border and hence the difference of GH¢7 per bag.
The players said there was also an under-declaration of customs duty to the tune of 50 per cent.
Citing high value perfumed rice as an example, they noted that the CIF price of Thai perfumed rice was $950 per metric tonne and customs duty of 20 per cent amounted to $190 per metric tonne, whereas duty paid at the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border was $95 per metric tonne.
They explained that the loss of revenue to the Ghana government on account of VAT on 75,000 metric tonnes was $6,412,500 annually while customs duty on the same quantum of imports was $7,125,000 annually, bringing the total loss of revenue on perfumed rice alone to $13.5 million.
They said the fear was that international prices of rice had started rising in the last four weeks, which was likely to promote more smuggling into the country, stressing that “rice prices have increased from an average of about $800 to $900 in the last four weeks”.

'Participate in environmental issues'

2010-08-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

Page 19: Daily Graphic, August 27, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A DIRECTOR at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Samuel D. Anku, says citizen participation in environmental issues will be greatly enhanced if there is access to information law to enhance accessibility to environmental information.
That way, he said, citizen’s participation in decision-making processes on the environment would not only be effective but also maintain trust and confidence between the government and the citizens.
“Confidentiality of information on grounds of national security provide a broad cloak while repressive measures for wrongful disclosure by government officials and the lack of sanctions for failure to provide access do not encourage access to information,” he noted.
Mr Anku, who is a Director of Intersectoral Networks Division at the EPA, was speaking at a round-table discussion on “Our environment, our economy, our democracy,” in Accra.
He said the passage of the Right to Information Bill would strengthen citizen access to environmental information.
It was organised by the Governance Africa Foundation, a non-governmental organisation.
He said for public participation to be effective, the local people must understand the concepts of environmental democracy in order to be able to contribute to the decision-making process.
He stressed the need for the government to firmly legalise statutory environmental committees at the decentralised levels and assure their effective and proactive functioning with a broad environmental scope.
“These decentralised structures should play a key role in planning, monitoring, early warning and information management,” he said.
Mr Anku said as Ghana strove to implement poverty reduction and environmental sustainability strategies, strong mechanisms for implementation of access rights could help create new economic opportunities for poor people and promote equity and social justice.
He said when citizens were conscious of their rights, they were able to demand accountability and responsibility on the part of their government.
In a welcoming address, the Executive Director of the Governance Africa Foundation, Mr Kwaku Baa Owusu, noted that Ghana, just like other countries, would have to exploit its resources to sustain itself and to ensure the well-being of its people.
He, however, said that exploitation must be done within a framework that did not compromise the sanctity of Article 36 (9) of the 1992 Constitution.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffour, said the threat of climate change was real and had the potential of adversely affecting Ghana’s plans for sustainable economic growth, food security and the health of the citizenry.
He said the negative impacts of climate change could undermine the government’s plans and assumptions on economic growth, health, social protection, agriculture, fisheries and trade.
“With careful planning and commitment, however, some of the damaging effects of climate change can be reduced and positive changes can be turned to economic advantage,” he said.
Dr Duffour said the ministry would seek economic benefits from climate mitigation by adopting innovative approaches in collaboration with other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to trapping carbon through conservation of existing forests, rehabilitating former forest areas and developing new plantations.
Such measures, he said, should bring their own financial rewards by enabling investors to obtain carbon credits on the commercial market.

19 FACE PROBE. At CEPS for fraud, etc

2010-08-26T00:43:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, August 26, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
NINETEEN officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) are being investigated for alleged extortion, fraud, smuggling and abuse of office.
The officials are also being investigated for their alleged involvement in freight forwarding, collection of monies as duty without issuing receipts, illegal detention of vehicles and harassment of clients.
The investigations, being undertaken by the Internal Affairs/Intelligence Unit of the service, followed petitions submitted to the unit since 2009 by CEPS officials, who report their colleagues; informants, individuals, as well as clients of CEPS such as the Agbogbloshie Fadama Onion Sellers, Ghana National Livestock Breeders and the Ghana Traders Association.
Already investigations into 23 cases reported against CEPS officials have been concluded and appropriate sanctions instituted against the affected personnel.
The Internal Affairs/Intelligence Unit was established by CEPS with the assistance of the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency (USCBP) in 2009 to fight corruption, maintain integrity and minimise the risk of revenue leakage and security breaches in the service.
The Commissioner of CEPS, Mr E. Kumah Lanyon, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that in an environment of perceived or real corruption, the establishment of the unit was essential to instilling discipline and ensuring integrity.
He said the good thing so far was the consciousness the unit had created among staff of CEPS that “somebody is watching and, therefore, has to be careful”.
“I can tell you that the awareness alone it had created is significant, as it has brought sanity into the conduct of officers,” he said.
Mr Lanyon said majority of the cases reported had been dealt with, with some personnel facing various forms of punishment.
He said there had been two or three dismissals but majority of those found guilty had received the appropriate sanctions as enshrined in the code of conduct of CEPS including suspensions, warning or refund of money.
Mr Lanyon said the management of CEPS added intelligence functions to the unit so that the service could deal with any emerging issues to prevent them from escalating.
He cited for instance that the intelligence unit could pick up signals of some officers trying to form a syndicate to cheat and, therefore, alert management to take steps to deal with it before the syndicate succeeded.
“This is to say that the unit must always be ahead of the game and advise management appropriately,” he said.
Mr Lanyon said the team at the Internal Affairs/Intelligence Unit had so far not disappointed the management and the staff as even the witnesses or suspects had often applauded them for the impartial manner investigations or complaints were handled.

How far, Mr IGP?

2010-08-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

PAGE 19: Daily Graphic, August 25, 2010.
Asks Albert K. Salia
IT IS a little over a year ago when Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye assumed the mantle of leadership of the Ghana Police Service.
At the time of his appointment, it was an incontrovertible fact as published in the May 19, 2009 issue of the Daily Graphic that patronage had become the gateway to progress in the Ghana Police Service. As a result, professional ethics, competence, efficiency and discipline seemed to have completely broken down. Morale was at its lowest ebb.
Besides those internal challenges, the Ghanaian society had to grapple with an increasing spate of armed robbery and other violent crimes which had created so much fear and panic in the system.
The challenges, which confronted Mr Quaye as the new IGP were, indeed, great and many feared that it was going to be business as usual for him. An article in the May 19, 2009 issue of the Daily Graphic had indicated that Mr Quaye could not afford to disappoint the President and the whole personnel of the service who saw him as someone to turn-around the fortunes of the service. Mr Quaye was also advised to guard against being pushed to the gutters by patronage.
The author argued that it was only a principled, disciplinarian, inspirer and fair-minded person who could command the service, particularly at this time when morale was so low and the image of the service had sunk to such disturbing depth.
At his first interaction with officers and men of the Service, Mr Quaye did not mince words as to what his mission was and what he expected from the personnel. He threw his first bombshell with the re-posting of senior personnel to other areas stressing that whatever appointment or changes he made, was in the best interest of the Service and also with the belief that the affected personnel were needed in those areas to enable them bring their strengths to bear on the Service.
Many doubted the effects of the changes but as a very proficient systems analyst with more than 18 years experience in conducting studies and recommending the re-organisation of various units and departments within the service, Mr Quaye’s key objective, as the IGP, was to work and attain the highest levels of efficiency in the Ghana Police Service.
Mr Quaye, who believes in team work, also possesses rich skills in policy formulation and planning for change with in-depth knowledge in research work and identification of organisational weaknesses and defects.
He has the ability to focus on strategic direction of an organisation, with a view to effecting and implementing realistic change management mechanisms which are aimed at meeting self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology (SMART) objectives.
Despite having all these qualities, many doubted his ability to make any positive changes in the Service, believing that saboteurs within the system and the influence of politicians would not allow him to achieve anything.
But one year on, can one say that he had made any positive impact? Certainly yes. In fact, the IGP is said to be too ambitious and wanting to leave a very good legacy before leaving office. What else should one expect from him?
Indeed, the spate of armed robbery across the country at the time of his appointment was terrible with reported cases almost every day.
In fact, not only has his administration been able to stem the tide, but the way and manner suspects have been arrested even after the offence clearly indicate that he put the right people at the right places to deliver. Without any prejudice, apart from the reward system put in place, the Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno would, forever, be engraved in the hearts and minds of many people who have encountered him and the way he dealt with robberies and other crimes.
The ability of the police to establish a trend in robbery cases and the use of particular brand of vehicles being used in robberies alone has been heartwarming and that is worthy of commendation.
It is important to note that some planned armed robberies were also foiled even before the robberies were committed.
The time response of the police to distress calls, particularly violent crime, also reduced and that often resulted in exchange of fire between the police and the robbers.
Another area where the IGP showed great leadership was his decision to suspend the enlistment of personnel until the improvement of residential accommodation for personnel. Before the suspension, there were announcements for recruitment of new personnel but the IGP had to intervene.
Certainly, the Police Administration under the leadership of Mr Quaye has also shown that welfare for personnel was not just limited to accommodation. In fact, cases of interdiction which seemed to have been forgotten, have all been addressed with some of them re-instated, while others have been dismissed.
I believe the team at the Finance Department, headed by DCOP Dr George Dampare, appreciates the essence of motivation and the concern of the IGP to the welfare of personnel. That is why it worked hard to make sure that the Ghana Police Service was the first public institution to be enrolled on the new Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
To address the issue of patronage, the Police Administration has instituted an examination programme for all prospective candidates to the Police College to ensure that selection was based on merit. It is a good move and many Chief Inspectors, who had been ignored previously, are happy while those who expected to benefit through patronage are disappointed.
The launch of the five-year strategic plan and the establishment of marine police unit to address the challenges of the Service and the oil and gas sector, shows the visionary leadership of the IGP who does not want to be overtaken by events. His pledge of organising training/re-training programmes for personnel is being implemented to the letter. Kudos.
So far, so good for the IGP but there are still other areas which he needs to address.
First, he himself has had cause to complain about the arm-chair investigations at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), which had made many operational personnel highly frustrated. The release of suspects on remand due to the inaction of both CID personnel and prosecutors due to the lackadaisical attitude to work, must be addressed.
This leads me to the issue of the need to strengthen the work force as the CID personnel often complain about overload of work.
The Police Administration must be reminded that the Service is losing some personnel to peacekeeping, retirement and death and, therefore, needs to be replaced.

Education Service revises disciplinary regulations

2010-08-26T00:41:00.000-07:00

Page 11: Daily Graphic, August 23, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Ghana Education Service (GES) is revising its disciplinary regulations to cover proprietors of private schools who misconduct themselves.
This is because the current regulations do not empower the GES to act against proprietors, heads, teaching and non-teaching staff of private schools.
The acting Deputy Director-General of the GES, Mr Stephen Adu who disclosed this said eventhough the Attorney-General’s Department for instance had asked the GES to sanction the proprietor of the Great Lamptey Mills Institute, Mr Enoch Nii Lamptey-Mills, who is facing rape charges, the service was unable to do so.
Mr Adu explained that under the current regulations, the GES could only depend on court decisions to sanction proprietors of schools who misconducted themselves.
He emphasised that the Attorney-General had asked the GES to take the necessary administrative measures to punish Nii Lamptey-Mills.
Unfortunately, he said, “the regulations in place did not cover proprietors and, therefore, the GES could not take any action against Lamptey-Mills.”
Mr Adu said the best the GES could do was to close down the school but explained that the welfare of the children had to be taken into consideration.
He said if the continuous presence of the proprietor was going to be a threat, “we would advise the parents and students appropriately.”
According to him, officials of the GES had been visiting the institute to inspect facilities and deal with other issues at the school.
Mr Adu said the case of Nii Lamptey-Mills was not straight forward and therefore required that the GES pursued it in a more professional manner.

Lamptey-Mills charged for rape

2010-08-26T00:40:00.002-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, August 21, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Proprietor of the Great Lamptey-Mills Institute, Enoch Nii Lamptey-Mills, has been rearrested on the orders of the Attorney-General’s Department and charged with rape.
Lamptey-Mills was arrested last Wednesday, August 18, 20100 and placed in police custody, pending the commencement of his trial after his release from the charge of impregnating and forcing a 16-year-old former student of his school to marry him.
A Circuit Court in Accra on October 22, last year, discharged Lamptey-Mills, who had been charged with compulsory marriage.
The Presiding judge, Mrs Georgina Mensah-Datsa, had ruled that the charge levelled against Lamptey-Mills was a misdemeanor, for which the law allowed an out-of-court settlement.
However, the Attorney-General last week said from the caution statement of Lamptey-Mills, the consent given by the girl was under duress and ordered his rearrest.
According to the Attorney-General, Lamptey-Mills stated that he found the girl in a sorry state with no one caring for her and, therefore, offered to assist her.
The Deputy Commander of the Accra Regional Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Eunice Odonkor, said the AG explained that the girl was influenced by the material support offered her by Lamptey-Mills to consent to have sex with him, resulting in the pregnancy.
She said the police, therefore, rearrested Lamptey-Mills last Wednesday and cautioned him, while awaiting the trial date.
She explained that the Attorney-General’s Department would be prosecuting when the trial start.
In September last year, Lamptey Mills was arrested by the police for impregnating and forcing to marry a 16-year-old former student of his and performed the marriage rites, making the victim his wife.
He was held on charges of compulsion marriage of a teenager.
Police sources said one year after the girl gave birth, Mills had failed to keep to his promise of building a house for her, provide for the upkeep of the mother and child, as well as restore the girl, who is now 17, to school.
The Great Lamptey-Mills Institute, formerly Lamptey-Mills Institute, was established on February 4, 1963 by the Late Rev. Abraham Samuel Lamptey-Mills after whom the school was named.
The Junior High School department was later established on September 31, 1994 by the current Director of the school, Enoch Lamptey-Mills.
The Senior High department was also founded in 2005 by the same director.

Shaka Zulu held over robbery

2010-08-26T00:40:00.001-07:00

Page 49: Daily Graphic, August 19, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A 31-YEAR-OLD man, Richard Cobbina, alias Shaka Zulu, has been arrested by the police for alleged robbery.
The suspect, also known as Custodia, was arrested at a popular drinking spot at Adabraka last Monday night after he had been identified by another robbery suspect.
Shaka Zulu allegedly confessed to taking part in robbing some Nigerians on the Spintex Road.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra on Tuesday, the Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said Shaka Zulu and his accomplices allegedly raided the residence of the Nigerians and robbed them of their laptops and personal effects after a friend of the suspect had complained that the Nigerians had defrauded him.
He said Shaka Zulu and his two friends recruited another person, identified as Wise Grey, alias Biggy, to take part in the robbery.
He said Biggy allegedly provided the weapons for the operation during which they took away five laptops and other personal effects of their victims.
ACP Yohuno said the victims of the robbery mustered courage to pursue the suspected robbers in a car while the robbers were walking.
According to him, the Nigerians tried to hit the suspects with their car but only one of them, identified only as Old School, who was carrying two of the laptops, was hit.
He said Shaka Zulu and the others escaped upon realising that it was the Nigerians pursuing them with the car.
ACP Yohuno said the Nigerian victims then handed over Old School to the Sakumono Police to investigate the matter.
He said Old School was currently on remand at the Nsawam Prisons while the police are searching for the two other suspects, identified as Abass and Stone.
He said intelligence led to the arrest Shaka Zulu last Monday, and he allegedly admitted to taking part in the robbery with the explanation that he took part because he needed money to take care of a lady he had impregnated.
ACP Yohuno said the arrest of Shaka Zulu should motivate Ghanaians to trust the police to deal with perpetrators of crime no matter how long it would take.

Ensure sustainability of investments - Bagbin

2010-08-26T00:39:00.000-07:00

Page 64: Daily Graphic, August 19, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Alban S. K. Bagbin, has called on district assemblies and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) to put in place measures to ensure the sustainability of investments made in the water and sanitation sectors in rural communities.
He stressed the need for the efficient and effective use of the facilities, since those investments in the water systems, among other things, would have significant impact on the economy, health and well-being of Ghanaians.
Speaking yesterday to the Daily Graphic on the government’s pledge to provide potable water for Ghanaians, Mr Bagbin said the recent inauguration of water and sanitation projects to serve the needs of 39 communities in the Central and Western regions was a clear testimony of the government’s commitment to complete all on-going projects started by the previous government.
“To safeguard the long term sustainability of all these investments in the water and sanitation sub-sector, there is the need for proper co-ordination and regulation of these projects,” he said.
He reminded district assemblies that the CWSA was expected to provide technical assistance to the Local Government Service and, therefore, urged the assemblies to take advantage of the technical expertise to develop water resources in their districts.
He said it was important that the district assemblies saw the CWSA as partners and build the necessary linkages with it to help provide safe and reliable water, as well as improved sanitation services for Ghanaians. He stressed that “your are not competitors and you don’t need to work at cross purposes”.
Mr Bagbin charged the CWSA to play a leading role towards the sustainability of water and sanitation facilities that had been delivered through various interventions.
He affirmed the government’s commitment to taking all measures to provide water and sanitation systems in all communities in the country.
He said the provision of potable water for Ghanaians constituted one of the growth poles being pursued by the government in collaboration with stakeholders and development partners such as the European Union to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Mr Bagbin expressed concern about the situation where many communities did not have access to potable water and described the trend as unacceptable.
He, therefore, urged the CWSA and the district assemblies to see it as a challenge to collaborate in a holistic manner to address the problems, especially in the rural areas.

Man arrested for stabbing step-daughter

2010-08-26T00:38:00.001-07:00

Page 64: Daily Graphic, August 18, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A 46-YEAR-OLD man, Kwabena Twum, has been arrested for allegedly stabbing the left eye of his step-daughter after the girl resisted attempts to have sex with her.
The suspect allegedly used a broken bottle to perforate the left eye of Mary Osei-Wusu, 22, the step-daughter, on July 15, 2010 and absconded.
Twum was, however, arrested on Monday, August 16, 2010 at the Ashaiman lorry park upon a tip-off.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra today, the Ashaiman Divisional Commander of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Christine Yevunoo, said the suspect went into hiding after perpetrating the act when his wife had gone out.
She said the victim, who is currently blind in the left eye as a result, had already undergone the first surgery with the second one expected next month.
“As I speak to you, the victim cannot see with the left eye and the medical report says she is blind in the left eye. It is only after the second surgery that we will know whether she has gone permanently blind in the left eye,” she said.

Police briefed on STX deal

2010-08-26T00:35:00.001-07:00

Page 64: Daily Graphic, 18, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Alban Bagbin, today began an outreach programme to interact with the top brass of the Ghana Police Service to brief them on the implementation of the STX Housing Project for the security agencies.
Under the project, 30,000 housing units are expected to be constructed for the Police, Military, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Prisons Service and other agencies with the Ghana Police Service expecting to benefit from 20,000 housing units.
Mr Bagbin is expected to the visit Burma Camp tomorrow.
Currently, 13,854 of the 23,840 police personnel are not accommodated with others being housed in workshops, canteens and other structures.
The Police Administration last year suspended the recruitment of personnel into the service due to the accommodation crisis facing the service.
Speaking at the forum with the leadership of the Ghana Police Service, Mr Bagbin said the essence of the interactions was to open up to all those who were going to benefit from the project to enable them to appreciate what was to come their way.
He, therefore, called for the co-operation and support of all stakeholders including chiefs and district assemblies to ensure the smooth take-off of the project next month when the sod was expected to be cut for construction work to begin.
He said the vision of the government was to ensure that no individual spent more than 30 per cent of his or her income on accommodation whether rental or owner-occupier system.
Mr Bagbin, whose presentation was met with applause from the personnel present, said Ghana’s housing deficit currently stood at more than one million with an annual delivery of only 40,000 of the 140,000 being provided.
He described the STX Housing Project as the largest and single most ambitious project and said it was an all-inclusive project with members of the minority in parliament forming part of delegations to discuss and review the deal with STX Korea.
He said the project would also lead to the establishment of major cement, steel and power plants in Ghana, which would create more than 40,000 jobs.
Mr Bagbin said the project, which would also bring about technology transfer, would be a launch pad for an integrated building and construction industry in Ghana.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, said the interest of the police in the project was evidenced by the presence of police personnel during the debate on the approval of the deal in Parliament.
He said the ambition of the Police Administration was to increase the strength of the personnel to 40,000 by 2014 and bring the police-civilian ratio closer to the United Nations approved ratio of 1:500.
He stressed that “with this project, there is the need for a corresponding increase in accommodation facilities to house the additional personnel”.
Mr Quaye enumerated some of the challenges to be encountered during the project as land acquisition, resettlement of displaced personnel and the ejection of squatters on police lands but pledged the support and commitment of the Police Administration to the successful completion of the project.
The Deputy Minister of the Interior, Dr Kwasi Apea-Kubi, said the problem of accommodation for all the security services required a holistic approach to resolve the crisis.

Liaise with police to set up more tent cities

2010-08-26T00:33:00.000-07:00

Page 67: Daily Graphic, August 16, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Ghana Police Service has appealed to residents of sprawling communities without police stations to co-operate with the police for the establishment of tent cities in their localities to fight armed robbery and residential crimes in those areas.
An initiative of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, the tent cities are to serve as a first point of call by residents to relay information on suspected criminal activities or suspicious characters in those areas.
Each of the tent cities will be provided with a telephone number to serve the communities and reduce time of response to distress calls.
Since its establishment last year, the number of tent cities has increased from the initial four to nine in the Accra-Tema police regions.
The Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Kwesi Ofori, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that the IGP had revised the operations of the tent cities project, with each tent city placed under an operational force of the police.
Hitherto, he said, personnel were randomly selected and posted to the tent cities, but it was detected that it was creating problems, especially with the change over of personnel and logistics.
Supt Ofori said the IGP had placed 10 vehicles at the disposal of the existing tent cities to enhance their operations,
while the personnel were now receiving ration while on duty, which was not the case when the project started last year.
He, however, said a major challenge facing the establishment of the tent cities was the non-co-operation of some residents.
He said conditions in the tent cities were not the best, as personnel had to struggle to answer the call of nature and encountered problems in trying to seek information on security problems in those communities from residents.
He said there were some communities, particularly the EMEFS and Regimannuel estates, who had co-operated so well with the police that the tent city project was working effectively in those areas.
Supt Ofori said since the establishment of the tent city at Emefs Estate, for instance, robberies and thefts in the area had stopped.
He said besides the estate developer moving the tent city team into a building, the residents had also appointed co-ordinators for various zones to co-ordinate reports with the police team.
He said other areas where the tent cities were currently located were REDCO Flats, Dome, Taifa-Burkina, Roman Ridge, Achimota Golf Park, West and East Legon, Manet Court and Dzorwulu.
The Director of Public Affairs said supervisors had also been appointed to monitor the activities of personnel on duty to ensure that they performed the duties assigned them.
He said the IGP was determined to bring policing to the doorstep of Ghanaians and, therefore, appealed for public support to ensure that the project succeeded.
Supt. Ofori urged the communities in which the tent cities would be sited to co-operate with the personnel and not see their presence as intimidatory, adding, “We are targeting criminals and not innocent people.”
He said as part of their duties, the personnel would be available to provide security talks for churches and schools in the vicinities in which they were located.
He said those on the specialised day patrols would be visiting homes and workplaces to interact with those they met to discuss their security concerns.

Police strengthen recruitment procedures

2010-06-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

Page 46: Daily Graphic, June 3, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
Police strengthen recruitment procedures
THE Police Administration has strengthened safeguards in its recruitment procedures to prevent miscreants from being enlisted into the Ghana Police Service.
In line with that, persons seeking recruitment into the service will have to go through more rigorous physical, background and certificate checks before they are recruited.
According to the Police Administration, no one will be exempted from the selection criteria and those who do not measure up to the new requirements will not be entertained.
The Police Administration has fixed the latter part of June or early July, this year for the next recruitment exercise by which time a number of ongoing accommodation projects would have been handed over to the service.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, told the Daily Graphic that recruitment into the service would be handled in a manner that would make it impossible for miscreants or persons without the calling to join the Ghana Police Service.
He said the Police Administration had set a criteria for subsequent recruitment into the service and anyone who did not meet the requirements would not be recruited.
“This is what we term positive purging. We will check every information provided, the references, verification of certificates and qualifications, among others,” he said.
Mr Quaye said the Police Administration was already having problems with some persons on protocol enlistment or those recommended by persons in positions of trust.
He said if it was found that an applicant lied while providing information, that person’s name would be deleted from the list and also would be liable for prosecution.
He added that there would be no wholesale passing out as was the case in the past.
According to him, the attitude, character, comportment and performance of trainees would be assessed and anyone who fell short of any of the training requirements would be sent home.
Mr Quaye said the new training regime required that any trainee who was repeated once would not be allowed to be repeat for the second time while an outright failure would warrant dismissal.
“We want to ensure that those who pass-out are those who deserve to wear the uniform,” he said.
The IGP said the curriculum for police training was being revised, and instructors would also have to meet the requisite capabilities of instructors.
Mr Quaye said after trainees had also passed out, he or she would be under probation for one year during which they would be monitored and observed.
“If the reports from the supervisors are favourable, the Police Administration will then endorse or confirm the enlistment into the service,” he added.

CID overwhelmed by cases

2010-05-24T00:00:00.002-07:00

Page 59: Daily Graphic, May 24, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service is overwhelmed by the number of cases reported to it.
Out of a total of 243,769 cases reported to the CID last year, more than 187,933 of them are still under investigations.
The inability of the CID to deal with the numerous cases had been attributed to the neglect in terms of training of its personnel to update their investigative skills.
Personnel of the CID had since late year started a retraining programme to sharpen their investigative skills.
The figure 243,769 represents a 1.6 per cent increase in the 239,823 cases reported in 2008.
Out of the cases reported in 2009, 8,322 were rejected for investigations while 16,462 cases were closed.
Crime statistics contained in the CID’s 2009 annual report indicated that 31,052 of the reported cases were sent to court resulting in 10,352 convictions, 1,115 acquitals while 19,585 cases were still awaiting trial.
The statistics indicated that assault cases topped the list of reported cases; stealing 89,407; threatening, 61,711; fraud, 24,959; causing damage, 18,906; causing harm, 10,944; defilement, 3,368; robbery,1,373; unlawful entry, 1387 and rape 447 cases.
Touching on major offences, the statistics indicated that there was a general decline in narcotic offences for 2009 as compared to 2008 with 679 cases in 2009 as against 714 cases in 2008 representing a decline of 4.9 per cent.
The number of murder cases for 2009 declined from 430 in 2008 to as 427 2008, rape from 485 in 2008 to 447 in 2009; defilement 1,675 to 1,604 in 2009 with robbery registering 1,373 in 2009 as against 1449 in 2008.
Among its achievements, the CID mentioned the arrest of five soldiers who kidnapped the Managing Director of Intercontinental Bank, suspects who killed a pastor, a gang who usually trailed and robbed immigrants at the Kotoka International Airport, the arrest of fugitive Mathew Allen Osei and a French national, who tried to export pornographic materials of Ghanaian women and children.

Ex-convict nabbed for stealing

2010-05-24T00:00:00.001-07:00

Page 59: Daily Graphic, May 24, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A NIGERIAN, who was released from the Ivorian prison on May 3, this year, has been arrested in Accra for breaking into three cars.
Ben Okosisi, who had in his possession, his release documents from the Ivorian authorities, had on May 11, 2010, broken into a car at Takoradi and made away with personal effects and GH¢600 belonging to his victim.
The suspect then relocated to Accra where at about 10pm on May 13, 2010, broke into two cars at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).
He was, however, arrested at about the same time on May 14, 2010 when he went back to the KIA to rob again.
The Accra Regional Crime Officer, Superintendent Frank Adu-Fati told newsmen in Accra today when the suspect was arrested on May 14, 2010, the key to a named hotel was found him.
He said the police, therefore, took him to the hotel for a search in the room.
According to him, a number of items including pen drives, documents and personal effects were found in the suspect’s bag.
Supt. Adu-Fati said an Electricity Company of Ghana form and a personal loan application form with an address in Takoradi was retrieved from him.
He said when the police called the contact number on the form, the owner claimed his car was broken into on May 11, 2010 at about 7pm in Takoradi and the items including a Motorola wireless radio, were stolen.
Supt. Adu-Fati said the suspect allegedly claimed he used a sharp object to open the cars.
He said the suspect’s release form from the Ivorian prison authorities, which was also retrieved from him, indicated that Okosisi served 24 months in prison for causing harm to someone he fought with.

Ultimatum to Novotel traders

2010-05-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, May 22, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) and the Accra Metropolitan Authority (AMA) have resolved that all traders at the Novotel Trading Park should relocate to the Pedestrian Mall at Odawna by Sunday.
The resolution was arrived at after an emergency RCC meeting yesterday to review the decision of the AMA to move the traders to the pedestrian mall.
The RCC had, in a letter dated May 5, 2010 and signed by its Chief Director, Mr F.T. Nartey, directed the AMA “to put on hold any movement of the traders from Novotel area to Odawna” until the RCC was convinced that the situation on the ground was conducive for the traders to move in.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic after the joint meeting, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashitey, said although some minor works needed to be done, the RCC had directed the AMA to complete them latest by today to facilitate the movement of the traders.
He said some of the works included the completion of the fence wall, access for rain water to pass into the main drains and compacting the ground.
The regional minister said the AMA was also asked to move in swiftly to settle the differences among the traders and prevent their ranks from being split along political lines.
Nii Ashitey said the AMA was also tasked to set up a management team to supervise the allocation of stalls and the movement of the traders to avoid further confusion.
According to him, some of the leaders of the traders had been accused of collecting money from the traders before allocating them stalls, saying that was not in the scheme of things for the resettlement.
The movement of the Novotel traders had generated tension between the traders and the AMA and also created a wedge between the RCC and the AMA, as the assembly felt the RCC was interfering in its work.
In the heat of the confusion, claims of ownership of the park plunged the matter into further controversy, with two other organisations claiming ownership of the land, as the authorities of the Kinbu Senior High/Technical School and representatives of a company, Dream Reality Limited, which claims to have acquired the property from the Accra City Management Company (ACMC), also entered the fray.
Yesterday’s meeting did not, however, discuss the issue of the ownership of the land, as that is to be handled at another level.

$1.9 Billion road map to transform Police Service

2010-05-23T23:56:00.002-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, May 20, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia & Timothy Gobah
THE Vice-President, Mr John Mahama, yesterday launched a $1.9 billion five-year Strategic National Policing Plan for the transformation and modernisation of the Ghana Police Service.
Emoluments and other incentives will require an additional $1 billion.
Under the road map strategic policy document, 16,000 additional personnel are to be recruited by 2014 to bring the total police strength to 40,000.
Four new police training schools are also to be established in the Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Western and Northern regions, while housing will be provided for 31,000 personnel of the service by 2014.
Although the Police Service requires 5,926 vehicles to enhance its operations, it currently has 1,512 and the plan will seek to address the challenges.
At the launch, which attracted retired Inspectors-General of Police, retired commissioners and members of the Diplomatic Corps, Mr Mahama called on all stakeholders to contribute financially and materially to the attainment of the goals of the plan.
He said the government had already started with the implementation of the 2010-2014 strategic plan with the provision of funds for the completion of all ongoing or abandoned police projects across the country, while work was ongoing on the new Forensic and Ballistic Laboratory.
He said equipment, in the form of communication gadgets and vehicles, was being provided by the government.
The Vice-President said the Police Service was re-engineering itself through effective strategic planning in order to re-define its strategies to be consistent with international standards for it to continue to be relevant and respected both nationally and internationally.
He commended the police and the other security agencies for the work they had been doing to keep the country peaceful and secure, in spite of the numerous challenges they faced.
He, however, expressed regret that a few bad nuts continued to receive infamous mention in the media for one misdemeanour or another, casting a blemish on the sterling performance of the majority.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, noted that the strategic plan, which was a revised version of the old one, would be completely executed.
He said the financial resources needed for the implementation of the plan were beyond the government’s normal budgetary allocation.
He said the Police Administration would unveil each of the project-specific packages under the plan and conduct a fund-raising event to mobilise funds for their implementation.
The plan represents the second formal attempt by the Ghana Police Service to fulfil the combined specification of the strategic objectives, national policing targets and capacity-building programmes and activities to be implemented over the medium term of five years and beyond to 2020.
The purpose of the plan is to enable the service to focus on democratic policing practices, as mandated by the Constitution, in serving the communities and the people, first by reviewing prevailing socio-economic conditions, stakeholders’ expectations, other environmental factors, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the service.

Korle-Bu to conduct DNA tests from May 24

2010-05-23T23:56:00.001-07:00

CID overwhelmed by cases
Page 51: Daily Graphic, Nay 20, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital will, from Monday, May 24, 2010, begin conducting human identification (DNA) tests.
That will make Ghana the second country after South Africa to have the capacity to carry out DNA tests on the continent.
The €178,000 molecular biology laboratory for the DNA chromosomal analysis will be manned by one of only two Ghanaian qualified and licensed biomedical scientists, Mr Augustine E. Sagoe.
The other Ghanaian is in South Africa, where he has been practising since he was licensed six years ago.
Even before it starts operations, the Korle-Bu DNA Paternity Centre, which is located in the Central Medical Laboratory building, has received more than 112 cases from the courts, individuals and medical practitioners.
The operation of the centre is seen as a major boost to making the nation’s premier hospital a one-stop health centre for the handling of all complicated cases.
Mr Sagoe told the Daily Graphic that the centre had also been registered and accepted internationally to make its findings acceptable to all institutions in the world.
He said it would also be used for DNA shuffling and library construction for criminal record keeping purposes and also to trace the genealogy of persons seven generations back.
He said the facility would make it easier to determine the history of medical conditions as to whether they ran through families or were by accident.
Throwing more light on the facility, Mr Sagoe said a survey he conducted at the courts in 2004 showed that there were a number of unresolved cases because DNA tests needed to be conducted to confirm certain findings before judgements could be given were not available.
Some of those cases, he said, involved rape and family issues.
According to him, the facility had been inundated with a large number of requests since the news broke last year that the hospital was to start running DNA services.
He said the analyser would also be of immense benefit to parents with hermaphrodite children to determine the dominant sex while they were young, since surgery would make it possible for such children to grow up to become ‘normal’ adults.
Mr Sagoe explained that the hospital had to add an equipment called Real Timer Polymerise Chain Reactor (PCR), a new technology used to amplify and simultaneously quantify a targeted DNA molecule, explaining that its late arrival had delayed the installation process.
He, however, said all was now set for the commencement of work at the centre.
The Daily Graphic, in its August 26, 2009 edition, broke the news of the setting up of a DNA Paternity Centre at the nation’s premier hospital.

GPRTU, AMA meeting ends in stalemate

2010-05-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

Page 29: Daily Graphic, May 19, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A MEETING yesterday to help resolve the rumpus between the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) over the implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was called off after officials of the GPRTU failed to submit their documented concerns.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashitey, who called the meeting, had asked the GPRTU to submit its concerns on paper as a working document to facilitate the resolution of the impasse.
He urged the GPRTU to also suggest solutions on how to improve the project.
“I believe that we want to work with documents so that we will all be clear in our minds about the issues being dealt with,” he added.
Nii Ashitey expressed the hope that at the next meeting, all the chief executives of the various assemblies involved in the implementation of the project would be present.
The Department of Urban Roads (DUR) is seeking to modernise and streamline Accra’s public transportation system with the introduction of the BRT.
But the GPRTU is opposed to it because it contends that the project will keep most of its members out of job.
According to the AMA, the BRT system would involve comfortable and large buses, fixed transportation routes with designated stops, sheltered stations and all day and night service.
Passengers would have to pay their fares prior to boarding the bus through a formalised fare collection system, instead of to the bus conductors directly, and drivers would have to register as legal entities.
It is anticipated that the BRT buses will reduce congestion and air pollution because they will be able to service more commuters and will not have to wait to be filled before leaving each stop, since the drivers will be paid a fixed amount, instead of having their earnings depending on the number of passengers they carry.
The proposed BRT system, which will be implemented by the DUR, with the support of the Urban Transport Project, is jointly funded by the Government of Ghana, the World Bank, the French Agency for Development and the Global Environmental Trust Fund.

WATCH OUT! Coke men in grey suits, EU Police warn

2010-05-12T01:52:00.001-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, May 12, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE European Police have warned Ghana to be on the alert to the influx of drug moguls from Latin American states under the guise of bringing investment into the country.
They said the drug barons were exploiting the conducive business climate and political stability to establish bases in Ghana and other West African countries to conduct their illicit business in drugs.
The Deputy Director of the British Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) responsible for Cocaine, Mr Neil Giles; the Deputy Director-General of the French National Anti-Narcotics Bureau (OCTRIS), Mr Jean-Jacques Colombi, and Mr Andrea Rossi of the Italian Police gave the warning in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday.
The team, which also includes Antonia Mena Lopez, the Head of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit of Spain, is in the country as part of a three-nation West African tour to raise issues over the influx of drugs in and out of West Africa by Latin American barons into Europe and North America.
The team will seek to strengthen relationships with the countries visited and seek to address the operational challenges facing drug enforcement agencies in West Africa to enable the sub-region to deal with the drug problem.
Mr Giles said there was strong evidence of the drug barons using money to buy influence at the political, law enforcement and judicial levels, adding that it was important that West African countries and their citizens understood the threats posed by those barons and how to deal with them.
West Africa was the target because of the strong trade relations between it and Europe, which the barons had capitalised on in their attempt to ship large consignments of cocaine to Europe under the guise of exporting various food items and other commodities, he said.
“The threat to West Africa is real and unless we continue to operate and collaborate effectively, West Africa will be in serious trouble,” he said, and referred to the recent interception of an aircraft loaded with cocaine on the tarmac in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as a signal that with the right systems in place, West Africa could stand up to the menace.
“Ghana must be more alert. You will deter by being more alert; it is as simple as that,” he advised.
Mr Giles emphasised international collaboration and said it was because of it that the team was visiting Ghana, Senegal and The Gambia to develop a system of sharing information and working in partnership to achieve positive results.
He, however, said that would require having partners with integrity, saying that “in the face of the resourcefulness of the traffickers, they will interfere with the political, judicial and law enforcement systems to have their way”.
Mr Giles commended Ghana for being at the forefront in the fight against drugs.
Mr Colombi said there had been a dramatic decline in the courier traffic from Ghana to European, noting that what that meant was that “what we are doing here is bearing fruit”.
He said Ghana had been able to find the right response to dealing with courier traffickers but was quick to add that it could also mean that the drug barons had changed their ways, hence the need to collaborate and look elsewhere.

Police nab four criminals

2010-05-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

Page 19: Daily Graphic, May 11, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
FOUR suspected criminals, including a former jail bird, have been arrested by the police in Accra.
While two of the suspects are alleged armed robbers, the other two have been arrested in connection with a murder case and a suspected money doubling scam, respectively.
They are John Amewugah, David Agbanyo, the alleged robbers, Festus Kwabena Oppong, the suspected murderer, and Charles Kobena Asiedu, the alleged money doubler.
While Amewugah was said to have been released from the Nsawam Medium Security Prison in February this year for his involvement in a bullion robbery at Teshie in 2003, Agbanyo was part of the gang that robbed a Ghanaian diplomat in March this year.
Briefing newsmen in Accra yesterday, the Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said the police had information that some armed robbers were planning to rob a forex bureau at Achimota on April 23, 2010.
He said plain-clothes policemen were subsequently detailed to the location of the forex bureau to lay ambush.
He said unknown to the suspected robbers, the owner of the bureau did not open for business on that day.
According to him, the police rushed on the robbers to arrest them but succeeded in apprehending only Amewugah, while his other accomplices, including one identified only as Awudu, escaped.
ACP Yohuno said a foreign pistol with six rounds of ammunition was retrieved from Amewugah.
He said it was later gathered that Awudu had been part of the bullion van robbery at Teshie but he managed to escape to Nigeria and returned only recently.
On Agbanyo, he said the suspect sought refuge in Ho in the Volta Region after the raid on the diplomat’s house, during which one of the accomplices, John Kofi Fiagbedzi, alias Spider, was killed.
He said one of the robbery victims of Spider and his gang identified Agbanyo as the person who had shot him in his left arm at Sakumono and took away his Range Rover in January this year.
With regard to Oppong, ACP Yohuno said the suspect visited a friend of his, Kofi Appiah, the caretaker of a house at Adusa, near Pokuase, on November 9, 2009 to pass the night.
He explained that Appiah and Oppong were both natives of Apedwa in the Eastern Region.
According to ACP Yohuno, Oppong had heard that money had been sent to Appiah to continue with the construction of the house in which he was staying.
He said the suspect asked Appiah to give him part of the money but Appiah allegedly refused, resulting in a quarrel between them.
ACP Yohuno said about 1:30 a.m., the suspect entered Appiah’s room, picked a bottle and hit Appiah’s forehead with it when he saw Appiah lying supine.
He said Appiah, in an attempt to escape from the room, fell along the way and the suspect allegedly hit Appiah’s neck with an object, killing him instantly.
He said Oppong then took Appiah’s body and locked it in a room, after which he took away two LCD television sets, ladies’ bags, pieces of cloth and a travelling bag.
ACP Yohuno said the suspect later gave the items to his girlfriend for safekeeping.
He said investigations led to Oppong’s arrest last Friday when he was about to board a vehicle at La Paz, a suburb of Accra.
On Asiedu, ACP Yohuno said a chop box loaded with toilet rolls and covered with fake dollar notes was arrested yesterday morning when he and his accomplices, yet to be identified, wanted to double money for an unsuspecting client.
He said two Qurans, two whisks and some beads (tasbars) were retrieved from the suspect.

And Palmer-Buckle wept!

2010-05-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, May 10, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, the Most Rev Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle, broke down in tears on several occasions on Sunday, May 8, 2010, as he preached a sermon of forgiveness and reconciliation at the Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church (MUCC).
The church was the same venue where last Sunday some irate members desecrated parts of the buildings in protest against some policies and demands of the Metropolitan Archbishop who was expected at the church for a confirmation service.
Not only was the visit to the MUCC unannounced; the Most Rev Palmer-Buckle also acknowledged that it was the second time he was shedding tears since joining the priesthood.
Intermittently breaking down in tears as he delivered the sermon, the Metropolitan Archbishop urged the congregation to use the unhappy incident to begin a new life by forging ahead in unity, love and peace.
“If, in any way, I have offended anyone, either by my utterances or actions, I ask for forgiveness for myself and for my priests,” he said and urged them to leave behind them the sad incident that occurred at the precincts of the church during his visit there last week.
“We can’t let our hearts be troubled or be afraid because of what happened here last Sunday,” he told the congregation in a sermon.
He reminded them that the church was not a museum of saints but a hospital for sinners, as Jesus Christ indicated in Luke 5:31-32, that “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people to repent, but outcasts.”
He, therefore, urged them to acknowledge their faults together and resolve them, for God might have a good purpose for what happened.
According to him, the congregation could not afford to let the world believe that they did the unthinkable or that the church was at loggerheads with itself.
The Most Rev Palmer-Buckle said what happened at the precincts of the church, the timing of the incident and its nature made him convinced that the perpetrators were neither Christians nor members of the MUCC.
He said the church had a duty to pray for the perpetrators so that the Holy Spirit would draw them to Christ.
He reminded the parishioners that the martyrs of Uganda were the pride of the church and pride of the lay apostolate, as the 22 men and women, including a 14-year-old boy, Kizito, died for their faith.
“I love you all. I need your love. Please love your priests, love one another,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Parish Pastoral Council of the MUCC has rendered an unqualified apology for the incident.
It said an investigative committee had been set up to look into the incident and urged anyone who had information on the incident to get in touch with the committee.
A statement issued by the PPC and read during yesterday’s church service noted that a date for repentance, renewal and re-dedication of the church would be announced later.
Members of the MUCC on May 2, 2010 received a rude shock when they turned up for worship only to find the sanctity of the church desecrated with human excreta and offensive posters by unknown persons.
The act was said to have been carried out at 3 a.m. in protest against some policies and demands of the Most Rev Palmer-Buckle, who was expected at the church for a confirmation service.
The first church service, which was to begin at 6:30 a.m., was delayed, as members had to wait for the mess and the strong stench which filled the air to be cleansed. The service eventually took place without any incident.
The perpetrators also tampered with the electrical works, ceiling fans and public address system of the church.

Headmistress held for indecent assault of nursery pupils

2010-05-07T00:21:00.001-07:00

Pages 16/17: Daily Graphic, May 7, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE headmistress of a nursery school at the Mallam Atta Market in Accra has been arrested for alleged indecent assault on pupils of the nursery.
The suspect, Cornelia Garbah, is currently on bail and is due to appear before court on May 10, 2010.
Four of her victims have so far been identified.
Cornelia has, however, denied any wrongdoing.
The Tesano Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Emmanuel Bossoh, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that a couple reported to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service on April 26, 2010 that Cornelia had been inserting her fingers into the vagina of their seven-year-old daughter.
He said as a part of the report issued by a medical officer after examining the victim, it was indicated that the victim had told the medical officer that Cornelia had been doing it to other girls.
According to Chief Supt Bossoh, the police went to the school to invite the headmistress for questioning and also to identify the other victims.
He said when the three other victims were identified, they all confirmed that Cornelia had been inserting her fingers into their private parts while they were on break.
He said the victims also showed the police the corner in the suspect’s office where she had been inserting her fingers into their private parts.
Chief Supt Bossoh said the victims alleged that Cornelia oftentimes sent anyone of them to buy either water or porridge for her during the break period.
Upon their return, he said, the suspect took them to the corner in her office to commit the offence, after which she would warn them not to tell anyone.
Chief Supt Bossoh said the victims claimed that each time they screamed for help, Cornelia shouted at them to keep quiet, saying that the victims claimed the act had been repeated several times.

Bureau receives 864 cases against policemen

2010-05-05T00:53:00.001-07:00

Page 46: Daily Graphic, May 5, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Bureau (PIPS) received 864 complaints from all parts of the country against police personnel last year.
Investigations into 551 of the complaints have been completed while 313 cases are still under investigation.
The complaints bordered on extortion, 47; misconduct, 243; misappropriation of exhibits, 53; unprofessional handling of cases, 136, and unlawful arrest and detention, 79.
The rest are police brutality, 67; meddling in civil cases, 96; withholding of exhibits, 66, and harassment and intimidation, 78.
Forty-nine of the police personnel were dismissed in 2009 and 43 interdicted while seven have so far been dismissed in 2010 with 37 on interdiction.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, who disclosed this in an interview, explained that other personnel whose offences did not warrant dismissals suffered other forms of punishment including reduction in rank.
He said he made it a policy on assumption of office in May last year that for him to succeed, he had to ensure that the service would not tolerate any offensive acts or misdeeds.
Mr Quaye said such a move was essential to winning the trust and confidence of the people especially the informants.
According to him, the image-cleansing exercise that he declared was paying off as people were not just reporting the misdeeds of police personnel, but that the offenders got punished.
He said personnel who were found to be indulging in criminal practices were dismissed, particularly those who blatantly got involved in crime or colluded with businessmen to defraud.
Mr Quaye said there was a policy in place to identify and flush out such criminal police personnel out of the service.
“The heat is on us because we do not want the public to see us as doing nothing about those criminal characters. We are cleansing ourselves so that we have policemen and women worthy of the uniform to remain and do their work in confidence,” he said.
The IGP said there were some personnel, both superiors and junior ranks, who were even exposing their colleagues to the Police Administration, saying “that should tell you things are now different”.
He said the Police Administration would tackle the image-cleansing agenda more robustly this year and gave the assurance that “we will purge ourselves”.
Mr Quaye said from the beginning of the year, he made it a policy to show a zero tolerance for robbery, respond promptly to distress calls and improve response time.
He said the Police Administration made use of its scarce resources and succeeded in achieving maximum returns.
Mr Quaye attributed the successes so far to the zoning of Accra/Tema into much smaller units and holding commanders accountable for any robberies.
“The credit should come to all of us, especially the informants who have partnered us effectively. For once, they have shown trust and confidence in the Police Administration. They openly come to us without fear of being exposed or cheated. This is something laudable,” he said.

3 Soldiers, others busted for extortion

2010-04-30T00:17:00.001-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, April 30, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THREE more soldiers and two policemen have been cited among the growing ranks of men in uniform who attempt to acquire wealth by means that offend the law.
The latest case to upset the Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police is one of alleged extortion in which the three soldiers (including an ex-serviceman) and a civilian were arrested today (Thursday) by officers at the Accra Regional Police Headquarters.
The two policemen and another civilian accomplice of theirs, however, managed to escape arrest.
One of the policemen on the run has been identified as Corporal Isaac Opare of the Accra Central Police Station, while the identity of the second has not been ascertained.
Those in custody are William Taylor and Bismark Boateng, both active servicemen at the Air Force Base, Iddrisu Attoh, who claimed he had resigned from the Air Force, and Agbeko Manna, the civilian.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Public Affairs Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Cyprian Zenge, said the suspects purportedly arrested and handcuffed two persons, Karim Abdulai and Nana Koranteng, a taxi driver, for allegedly smoking Indian hemp.
He said the security men allegedly informed the “suspects” that the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, had ordered their arrest for dealing in Indian hemp.
He said the security men, at that point, sought to bargain with the “suspects” for their release.
That, he explained, was after the security men had seized Nana Koranteng’s mobile phones, money and car key.
He said when the security men drove towards the Accra Regional Police Command, they did not want to go into the yard with the “suspects”, resulting in a heated argument, with Abdulai and Koranteng insisting that they be sent to the Regional Police Commander.
He said the security men attempted to abscond when some policemen approached their vehicle to find out what was happening. In the process, the soldiers and Agbeko were arrested.
To effect the operation, he said, one of the civilians hired a trotro in the morning to pick the soldiers.
He said one of the soldiers was picked up around Kantamanto, from where they went to Dansoman to pick three other persons, including another soldier.
He said the gang went back to the Central Motor Traffic and Transport Unit to pick up another policeman and from there they went to Avenor, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, for the operation.

Music producer nabbed over cocaine

2010-04-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, April 30, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A SELF-proclaimed music producer was on Tuesday night arrested by officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) for allegedly attempting to smuggle substances suspected to be cocaine outside the country.
Samuel Sarfo Kantanka, alias Manga, 56, claimed he would have been paid £4,000 if he had successfully delivered the 96 pellets of cocaine he claimed to have swallowed.
As of the time of filing this report, Sarfo Kantanka was still expelling the drugs he ingested.
The suspect was arrested while going through departure formalities at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra on his way to London.
He, however, denied being a music producer and explained that he had used that profession to acquire a passport and facilitate his travels abroad.
Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Director of Operations of NACOB, Mr Dickson Akatsa, said the board’s operatives had accosted Sarfo Kantanka on suspicion that he was carrying drugs.
He said the suspect, who was travelling on a Ghanaian passport with number H1894034, was then taken through the body scanner, which showed that there were some foreign materials concealed in his body.
He said a urine test confirmed that the suspect had ingested narcotic substances.
According to him, upon interrogation, the suspect allegedly mentioned someone he identified only as Stone as the one who gave him the drugs at a guest house at Ashongman to give to a Ghanaian in London, whom he identified only as Obroni.
Mr Akatsa said Sarfo Kantanka led NACOB officials on a wild goose chase to locate Stone’s house after he had told the officials that he knew the house.
The suspect told NACOB officials that he was not a music producer but that the accolade had been given to him when he followed some bandsmen around the country between 1977 and 1979.
According to him, he also adopted that profession to help Ghanaians travel abroad under the guise of going to produce music abroad.

Maritime boundary demarcation not about oil

2010-04-28T00:48:00.001-07:00

Page 49: Daily Graphic, April 28, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
GHANA and Cote d’Ivoire have made it clear that the task before their joint ministerial committee on the demarcation of their maritime boundary is not about oil.
The Ivorian Interior Minister, Mr Desire Tagro, made the point in Accra yesterday at the opening of a two-day inter-ministerial discussion aimed at an amicable demarcation of the two countries’ maritime boundary.
“The issue is about the demarcation of maritime boundaries and not oil fields, as has been churned out in media circles,” he said, and appealed to the media to facilitate the process, instead of sensationalising it to destroy the hard- won trust, friendship and brotherliness between the two countries.
Mr Tagro said the friendship and relationship between President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana and his Ivorian counterpart, President Laurent Gbagbo, had been qualitatively built and had to be guarded because it had become the envy of many countries.
He was hopeful that the negotiations would take place without the media stirring unnecessary passions to destroy the relations between the two countries.
The meeting is expected to develop a road map for the negotiations and also enable Ghana to respond to the Ivorian proposal submitted during the second meeting between the two countries in Ghana in February last year.
Cote d’Ivoire is also expected to respond to proposals made by Ghana, after which the two countries will set an agenda and date for the next meeting.
Ghana’s delegation is led by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources and Chairman of the Boundary Commission, Alhaji Collins Dauda, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, and the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, as members of the 20-member delegation.
The Ivorian side is led by Mr Tagro and it includes the country’s Minister of Mines and Energy, Mr Augustin Comoe, and the Ivorian Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Auguste Emmanuel Ackah.
Addressing the opening session, Alhaji Dauda noted that the subject for the meeting was a requirement for Ghana and its coastal neighbours to negotiate their maritime boundaries in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
He made it clear that maritime boundaries were required between neighbouring states, just like land boundaries, as they established the limits within which neighbouring states might operate, exercise their jurisdiction and in which they had the right of ownership.
He noted that Ghana and its neighbours had agreed that issues relating to adjacent or opposite boundaries should continue to be discussed in a spirit of co-operation to arrive at definite maritime boundaries delimitation after their respective submissions.
He recalled that the presidents of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire had met at their level and assured each other of co-operation in the boundary delimitation process.
He said it was in the light of that that Ghana had invited Cote d’Ivoire to continue with the process of delimitation of their common maritime boundary after the government had composed a Ghana Boundary Commission to engage its neighbours to continue with the negotiations.
Alhaji Dauda said the cordial relations between the two countries would ensure that the negotiations went on successfully based on the provisions of the UNCLOS.
The Ivorian delegation, led by Mr Tagro, later in the day delivered a special message from the Ivorian Leader, President Gbagbo to President Mills at the Castle, Osu, reports Kweku Tsen.
Interacting with the media after delivering the message, Mr Tagro said President Mills and President Gbagbo were expected to meet at Yamossoukro in Cote d’Ivoire to take a detailed and dispassionate look at the boundary issue between the two countries.
He was accompanied by the Ivorian Minister of Mines, Mr Comoe; Mr Ackah, the Ambassador of Cote d’Ivoire in Ghana, and Mr Madi Buoabre, a member of the Ivorian Parliament.
Mr Tagro said an invitation to that effect had been extended to the Ghanaian President but indicated that the date for the meeting between the two countries to deal with the boundary issue was yet to be determined.
“President Gbagbo has extended an invitation to President Mills for the meeting and the Ghanaian President has to respond to the invitation for the holding of the meeting at his own convenience, considering his tight schedule,” he said.
Mr Tagro said Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire relations dated back to the first Republic under President Nkrumah and for that matter issues which arose between them should be solved amicably.
It would be recalled that President Mills recently swore in the Ghana Boundary Demarcation Commission to oversee the demarcation and delimitation of the country’s land borders and marine positions.
That was after Parliament had passed the Boundary Demarcation Bill which was sent to the House under a Certificate of Urgency by the government.
Welcoming the delegation, President Mills called for the strengthening of Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire relations for the mutual benefit of the two countries.
Commenting on the forthcoming elections in Cote d’Ivoire, President Mills said it was the expectation of the government and people of Ghana that the polls would pass off peacefully.
“The government and people of Ghana stand solidly behind you as you prepare to conduct your elections,” he said. “We know democracy will triumph in Cote d’Ivoire,” he added.
Present at the meeting were the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni and Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, respectively.

Police indicts chiefs over Fulani herdsmen

2010-04-27T00:03:00.000-07:00

Page 16: Daily Graphic, April 27, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Ghana Police Service has indicted some chiefs and landowners in the country for perpetuating the menace of Fulani herdsmen by taking monies and cows from them and allowing them to settle on their lands.
Withholding the names of the chiefs and landowners for the time being, the police said such nefarious activities were rampant in the Northern, Eastern, Volta, Brong Ahafo, Upper East and Upper West regions and the Accra plains, posing a serious threat to food security in the country.
A report compiled by the Ghana Police Service painted a scary picture of the situation and described the allocation of land to migrant herdsmen as a new gateway to prosperity for some chiefs and landowners.
With the escalating situation, the police report warned that soon, it would be difficult for those chiefs and landowners to share or surrender their control over land “to the political leaders at the national and local levels” for development purposes “without massive resistance”.
It said the Fulanis entered into settlement agreements with the traditional authorities and landowners, which allowed the nomads to use the resources of the area.
According to the report, which covered the year 2009, earnings from rent paid by migrant Fulani herdsmen constituted a major source of income to landowners in these impoverished areas.
“Chiefs prefer to give land to the migrant Fulani, especially the herdsmen, who are rich in cattle and can afford to make substantial payments as settlement fees,” it said.
Besides, the report said, chiefs who gave out land to herdsmen were able to acquire cattle and build up a sizeable cattle herd of their own within a relatively short time, stressing that “these chiefs and landowners contribute very little of their own time and effort in acquiring this livestock”.
It acknowledged that moves by governments in the past to identify and prosecute chiefs who collaborated with the migrant Fulanis set the local administration on a collision course with the chiefs.
It added that an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust characterised the relationship between the locals and Fulani herdsmen as a result of the destruction of crops and consumption of food items by cattle especially during the planting season and the immediate post-harvest period.
The report, therefore, suggested a half-yearly renewal of registration of Fulanis, based on comportment, by the Ghana Immigration Service and the police.
It also suggested that the entry and exit of the migrant Fulani herdsmen should be strictly controlled while the Fulanis were restrained from possessing weapons, but should be allowed only under appropriate certification and control.
It said municipal and district assemblies must also be told in clear terms not to use revenue mobilisation as an excuse to harbour the Fulani herdsmen in their areas of jurisdiction and close their eyes to the destruction that the Fulanisd been causing to the environment.
It said Fulanis who did not want to obey the laws of the land must be shown the exit.

Police, Immigration flush out fulani herdsmen

2010-04-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

Page 67: Daily Graphic, April 26, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A COMBINED team of personnel from the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Immigration Service at the weekend flushed out some Fulani herdsmen from the Agotime-Kpetoe-Batime area of the Volta Region.
Five of the leaders of the herdsmen are currently in custody in Ho, while more than 600 cattle were pushed/repulsed to Togo where they came from.
The leaders in custody are Mahamadu Fulani, Abdulai Mahamadu, Yaro Mahamadu, Tahiru Kole and Ibrahim Amadu.
The Food and Crops Division of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is to be contacted to assess the damage caused to farms in the area.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, has subsequently directed all policemen in border towns to collaborate with their GIS counterparts to deal with the Fulani menace as the farming season is about to set in.
Mr Quaye has also warned traditional authorities to desist from negotiating with Fulani herdsmen to use their terrain, only for them to end up destroying the farms of their subjects.
The Director of Police Public Affairs, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Kwasi Ofori, told the Daily Graphic that the Volta Regional Police Commander, DCOP David Ampah-Benin, who led the operation, had information that some traditional leaders had allowed the cattle of the Fulani herdsmen to graze on their land.
He said the cattle had destroyed large tracts of farmland in the affected area.
According to him, the swift response from the police and the GIS helped to push back the Fulanis to Togo, where they had come from.
Regrettably, he said, some opinion leaders and chiefs often failed to notify the political and security authorities of the presence of the Fulanis until farmers started to complain.
DSP Ofori said the exercise was not a hate one against Fulanis but intended to check the wanton destruction of farms and water bodies.
He said the IGP had directed the various police commands to collaborate with the local assemblies to see how to manage those Fulani herdsmen already in the country.

Robbery - Prophetess, 5 others picked up

2010-04-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, April 23, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
FIVE persons, including a prophetess, have been picked up in connection with the robbery of two foreign visitors at a hotel at East Cantonments last Tuesday.The police have also retrieved the Nissan Sentra which the suspected robbers snatched from its owner after their car had run into a ditch.
The passport of one of the visitors, who is a female, has also been retrieved.
Those in custody are Prophetess Mama Romeo, Joseph Annonor, a mechanic, Vida Karikari, Doris Karikari and Doris Dede Tetteh.
The Nungua District Crime Officer, ASP (Dr) Philip Akanpami, told the Daily Graphic that an informant alerted the police to a vehicle being tampered with by a mechanic at the Nungua Old Cemetery on Wednesday afternoon.
He said when the police moved to the scene, Joseph Annonor, the mechanic, indicated that he had been contracted by three young men to repair the ignition, since they had lost the ignition key.
He said the mechanic then led the police to Prophetess Romeo’s residence, where the car had allegedly been parked overnight.
ASP Akanpami said the prophetess also indicated that three young ladies, Vida, Doris and Dede, who lived close by, had pleaded with her to allow their visitors to park the car in her yard, since their house was not walled.
According to him, when the prophetess led the police to the house of the three ladies, they were informed that the ladies had left for a town on the Akuapem Ridge.
He said the police later had information on the movement of the ladies, which led to their arrest.
ASP Akanpami said the case had been referred to the Accra Regional Police Headquarters for further investigations.
The Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said the two men who had invited the visitors to Ghana and who had been arrested to assist in investigations had been granted bail.
Three armed robbers, on Tuesday night, attacked and robbed two foreign visitors as they entered the reception of a hotel at East Cantonments.
The suspects later snatched a vehicle near the Ghana Free Zones offices after their white Toyota Corolla, with registration number GE 8793-09, had run into a ditch.
All the personal belongings of the foreign visitors, including laptops, digital cameras and cash, were taken from them.

Police to probe death of deputy minister's wife

2010-04-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

Page 17: Daily Graphic, April 23, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, has ordered investigations into the death of the wife of a Deputy Minister of Energy, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, at the Police Hospital.
The woman was alleged to have died on Wednesday during child birth at the Police Hospital in Accra through negligence on the part of some medical staff.
The Director-General of Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Bureau (PIPS), DCOP Timothy Ashiley, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that the IGP had been alarmed by the news and asked that it should be investigated.
He said the news came as a surprise, especially when research published recently indicated that the Police Hospital had the best maternal health standards in the country.
He explained that it was to ensure that standards and best practices were maintained at the hospital that the IGP had ordered PIPS to investigate.
DCOP Ashiley said with the exception of one more person to be talked to, a lot had been done by way of preliminary investigations and gave the assurance that by close of day today, some findings would have been made.
Some family members have expressed disquiet over the conduct of the hospital staff and demanded a post mortem before the late Mrs Fuseini was buried.

Britain confident in our economy

2010-04-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

Page 32: Daily Graphic, April 23, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
BRITAIN has expressed confidence in the prospects of Ghana’s economic growth and development.
The British High Commissioner to Ghana, Dr Nicholas Westcott, said the confidence was buoyed by the number of British companies doing business in Ghana and the interest shown by more British firms to do business in the country.
Speaking at a reception to commemorate the Queen’s birthday in Accra on Wednesday, Dr Westcott noted, “Land Rover is re-launching itself on the Ghanaian market with its latest and best products next month and a few days later Virgin Atlantic will launch its first service between Heathrow and Accra, demonstrating continued British commitment to the prospects for Ghana’s economic growth and development.”
He said trade between Ghana and Britain was nearly six times the size of aid flows, amounting to $500 million a year.
He acknowledged the tremendous contributions of Tullow Oil and Vodafone in bringing technology and skills to Ghana.
“Both companies are committed not just to commercial activities but to Ghana as a country. Tullow’s corporate social responsibility programme has helped it to build links with communities in the Western Region and the Vodafone Foundation is supporting one of the most inspiring institutions, the Right to Dream Academy, for young sportsmen,” he said.
Dr Westcott said the British Department For International Development (DFID) programmed support to Ghana rose to £86 million over the past year, with much of it focused on the health and educational sectors which were key to Ghana’s future.
He said the British government had also supported private sector development, civil society, social protection for the poorest, better management of public finances and actions that reinforced democratic accountability.
According to him, the British Council continued to focus particularly on strengthening links between higher educational institutions and schools in the UK and Ghana with the view to helping young Ghanaians to develop their skills for their own benefit and that of their country.
He expressed happiness over the closer co-operation between the UK and Ghana in the fight against drugs and crime and in managing irregular migration.
The High Commissioner said Ghana and the UK were also working together to promote stability in the sub-region.
He said after working hand-in-hand with Ghana at the climate change conference to put in place the “fast start” finance initiative, the British Government was looking forward to providing funding for Ghana’s own framework for sustainable development.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hannah Tetteh, said the interest of British firms to invest in Ghana attested to their confidence in the resilience and growth of the economy.
She pledged the government’s commitment to manage the economy responsibly and facilitate an enabling environment that would encourage more investments from the UK and elsewhere to boost bilateral trade.
She commended the British Government for its friendship and co-operation and for the various forms of technical assistance and aid provided for Ghana over the years.

They are for court today

2010-04-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, April 22, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE former Chief Executive of the Ghana@50 Secretariat, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, and a former Chief of Staff, Mr Kwadwo Mpiani, are to appear in court to face charges of wilfully causing financial loss to the state.
The Attorney-General is expected to read out the full charges to the two men when they appear at the Commercial Court today.
The two men were officially charged when they responded to an invitation to the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) yesterday.
Sources at the CID Headquarters told the Daily Graphic that Dr Wereko-Brobby had gone there in the company of his lawyer, Mr Akoto Ampaw, while Mr Egbert Faibille accompanied Mr Mpiani.
They said the two men had indicated that whatever they had done had been in the line of their duty.
Counsel for Mr Mpiani, Mr Faibille, confirmed to the Daily Graphic soon after they had left the CID Headquarters that his client and Dr Wereko-Brobby had been officially charged.
He said they would be in court today to listen to whatever was there for them.
The government on Wednesday accepted the recommendations of the commission of inquiry into the Ghana@50 celebrations and directed that the two men be prosecuted.

Major changes in police hierarchy

2010-04-22T01:03:00.000-07:00

Page 49: Daily Graphic, April 22, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, has announced major changes in some top positions of the Ghana Police Service as part of efforts to inject efficiency into the service.
As part of the changes, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), DCOP Frank Adu-Poku, is to hand over to DCOP Prosper Kwame Agblor, who is currently on secondment with the INTERPOL Office, Abidjan.
DCOP Adu-Poku will now be responsible for Technical Services at the Police Headquarters.
The changes, which are to take immediate effect, have Commissioner of Police (COP) Joana Osei-Poku, the Director-General, Human Resource Development, swapping position with DCOP Dr Peter Alex Wiredu, the Director-General of Administration.
DCOP Gyeabour Ofosu-Mensah, currently the Director-General for Research, Planning and Technical Services, moves to Welfare, while the Eastern Regional Police Commander, DCOP Stephen Andoh-Kwofie, moves to the Central Region as the Regional Commander.
The Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Police Commander, DCOP Ransford Moses Ninson, is to take over as the Eastern Regional Police Commander, with DCOP Robert Mark Azu, the second-in-command at the Western Region, moving to the Police Headquarters in Accra.
DCOP Yaagy Akuribah, the Chief Staff Officer at the Police Headquarters, is to take over as the Commandant of the Police College, with the current Commandant, ACP Nana Asare Oware Pinkro III, moving to the Western Region as the Deputy Regional Police Commander.
The Akropong Divisional Police Commander, DCOP (Ms) Mina Ayim, is to take over as the Director-General, Research and Planning, at the Police Headquarters, while ACP Kwadwo Boapeah Otchere is to take over as the Chief Staff Officer at the Police Headquarters.
Mr Quaye told the Daily Graphic that the changes were in line with his policy to strengthen and inject efficiency into some of the sectors in the hierarchy of the Police Administration.
He explained that the changes formed part of the performance re-engineering he sought to bring on board to ensure that the police employed approved and accepted practices in the delivery of services to all stakeholders.
Mr Quaye said the changes did not mean that those who were changed were inefficient but that they were needed in their new areas.
This is the second time the IGP has made changes in leadership positions of the Ghana Police Service since assuming duty almost a year ago.

Bawku - More than 80 lives lost

2010-04-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

Page 64: Daily Graphic, April 22, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
MORE than 80 lives have been lost in the Bawku conflict since December 31, 2007 when the internecine conflict between the Kusasis and Mamprusis re-ignited.
Thirty people have also received gunshot wounds as a result of the conflict.
The conflict has further recorded 37 cases of arson involving 14 houses, five shops, 13 vehicles, two motorbikes and a communication centre.
So far, more than 10 people are in custody for their alleged roles in murders and attempted murders.
Seven other persons are on the wanted list of the police to assist in investigations.
The Upper East Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Bright Oduro, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the death toll could be more because some of the deaths were not brought to the notice of the police.
He said since December 2009, 11 official deaths and 14 wounded cases had been reported to the police and explained that some of the killings were related to the conflict, while others were linked to robbery.
ACP Oduro noted that one of two persons in custody for taking part in barricading the Garu road and attacking travellers, for instance, did what he did on retaliatory grounds because the suspect, identified only as Samadu, had seven of his relatives killed in the Buabila massacre in June 2008 in which 17 women and children were hacked to death.
With regard to some of the criminal killings, he alleged that suspect Seidu Awale was behind the killing of Felix Asibi Frafra, a member of staff of the Bawku Office of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), on June 1, 2009.
ACP Oduro said three other persons — Ibrahim Taller, Zab and Medirel — were wanted in connection with the robbery and murder of a businessman, Suraju Ablabila, on January 30, 2010.
He said two other persons — Muniru Gariba and Muniru Welda — were wanted in connection with the murder of Alhaji Rufai Sumani on the Bawku-Sankasi road on September 6, 2009, while Mohammadu Iddrisu, alias Bush Rambo, was wanted in connection with the attempted murder of Fuseini Moro on October 29, 2009.
The Upper East Regional Police boss said an ex-soldier, identified only as Badim, alias Tanko, alias Most killer, was wanted in connection with the murder of Karim Oga in 2008.
ACP Oduro said the police were facing a number of challenges in dealing with the killings in Bawku.
He said apart from the fact that the people were not volunteering information to assist the police, the perpetrators also took advantage of the darkness in Bawku to carry out their dastardly acts.
He noted that the perpetrators lived among the people but the people refused to identify them to the police and cited the fact that very often some of the people killed were hurriedly buried, without notifying the police.
He said the chiefs and opinion leaders did not advise the youth to stop the killings and counter attacks.
ACP Oduro said the link roads were also very bad and highly unmotorable, making it difficult for the police to move in swiftly to deal with attacks.

Two foreign visitors robbed at hotel

2010-04-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

Page 64: Daily Graphic, April 22, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THREE armed robbers on Tuesday night attacked and robbed two foreign visitors as they entered the reception of a hotel at East Cantonments.
The suspects later snatched a vehicle near the Ghana Free Zones offices after their white Toyota Corolla, with registration number GE 8793-09, had run into a ditch.
All the personal belongings of the foreign visitors, including laptops, digital cameras and cash, were taken from them.
Two persons said to have invited the two visitors, male and female, are assisting the police in investigations.
The Cantonments District Police Commander, DSP Alex Kumangtani, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that the visitors had arrived from The Netherlands about 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
He said a vehicle from the hotel where they had booked to stay picked them up from the airport.
According to him, a white Toyota Corolla with three occupants pulled up at the hotel just as the visitors were entering the reception of the hotel.
DSP Kumangtani said the three suspects followed the visitors to the reception and pulled pistols at all those there and ordered them to lie down.
He said the three armed men then snatched all the belongings of the guests and sped off in their car.
He said on reaching the junction near the GFB, the robbers’ vehicle ran into a ditch.
DSP Kumangtani said the suspects then attacked a lady who was driving past in her Nissan Sentra, with registration number GE 1914-10, and took it away.
He said the Toyota Corolla had been parked at the Cantonments Police Station.

2,500 fail to settle MASLOC loan

2010-04-22T00:59:00.000-07:00

Page 30: Daily Graphic, April 21, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
More than 2,500 persons who took loans amounting to GH¢1.4 million from the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) in the Eastern Region have failed to settle their indebtedness.
About GH¢1.8 million was disbursed to more than 3,400 beneficiaries between 2007 and 2008.
A total of GH¢300,000 has so far been retrieved from about 500 of the defaulting clients since November last year.
The beneficiaries had between six months and one year to resettle their indebtedness.
The Eastern Regional Manager of MASLOC, Mr Dominic Baah-Ayim, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that 119 of such defaulters were facing court action to enable the office to retrieve various sums of money from them.
He explained that the court action was the last resort being used to get defaulters to repay their indebtedness so that applicants on the waiting list could be served.
According to him, the office often sent text messages, made phone calls to defaulters and also summoned them before opinion leaders to impress upon them to pay.
Mr Baah-Ayim said it was only after those moves had failed that the office resorted to a court action to retrieve its funds.
He indicated that the office had been able to retrieve GH¢20,000 from four of its recalcitrant beneficiaries in the Eastern Region through court action.
He said some of the beneficiaries after collecting the money, often abandoned their business intentions thinking that it was freebie from government.
He cited the case of a 56-year-old poultry farmer at Suhyen-Koforidua, Kojo Anim, who allegedly accessed GH¢2,000 from MASLOC with the view to expanding his poultry business but absconded to Kumasi after selling off the birds on the farm and abandoned the project.
He said after several visits to the suspect’s project site at Suhyen near Koforidua to locate him proved futile, MASLOC quickly summoned his two guarantors to the office for a combined search effort.
“In a long and tortuous search, it was revealed that the beneficiary had abandoned his project at Suhyen-Koforidua and now domiciled at Bremen near Kumasi where he had deleted all contact details,” he added.
Mr Baah-Ayim said a joint effort of the Kumasi Police and the MASLOC recovery team tracked him down with an abscond warrant on March 25, 2010 for his refusal to pay MASLOC facility taken as far back as February, 28 2008.
In another vein, he said, a leader of the Betom Hope Movement in Koforidua, Comfort Agyapong, whose group was granted GH¢6,250 as microcredit loan, had also been arrested for extorting money from her group members on the pretext of paying the MASLOC loan.
Mr Baah-Ayim said to forestall recurrence, the management had also begun a nationwide public education for its prospective clients on how to effectively utilise the loans.
He explained that the training was essential to create the platform for prospective beneficiaries to learn business-like approach to handling money for productivity.
According to him, the training formed part of efforts to correct the erroneous impression about the operations of MASLOC that the loans granted to beneficiaries were "free money" or "government's gift" to party functionaries.
MASLOC, he explained, was expected to promote the emergence, development and growth of a sustainable and decentralised micro-financial sector with grass-roots participation in ownership, management and control.

Police nabbed nine in swoop

2010-04-22T00:55:00.000-07:00

Pages 16/17: Daily Graphic, April 20, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
NINE suspected criminals have been rounded up in two separate operations by the Accra Regional Police.
Five of the suspects were arrested hours after they had attacked a guest house at Nyanyano, near Kasoa last Sunday night, during which all the stolen items were retrieved.
They are Sunday Eze, 40, Kelvin Asabre, 32, Kofi Adamba, 31, Samuel Cudjoe, 30, and Mohammed Saani, 30.
Interestingly, Eze, Asabre and Adamba were all granted bail by an Accra High Court in February, this year for robbery. Asabre, until his release, had been on remand for eight years for robbery.
In the second operation, four others — Ibrahim Seidu, 45; Kofi Nyarko, alias Michael, 24; Adams Ibrahim, 19, and Jones Kumah, alias Alan Cash — were arrested in Accra and Kumasi for their alleged involvement in the snatching of cars.
Six of the snatched cars including a RAV 4 have all been retrieved by the police.
At a news conference in Accra yesterday, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, and her deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said the police received a distressed call at about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 18, 2010 that some suspected robbers had attacked a guest house at Nyanyano.
She said the swift response by the police to the scene led to the arrest of Sunday Eze while fleeing the scene of the robbery.
According to her, Eze led the police to arrest Asabre from whom the police retrieved $900, £190 and GH¢770 at North Industrial Area.
DCOP Atinga said Kelvin also led the police to arrest Saani, Adamba and Cudjoe, from whom 20 Ghanaian passports, 11 wristwatches and 12 mobile phones were recovered from their hideout.
She said checks at the registry of the police indicated that Kelvin, who was arrested in connection with robbery, was granted bail by an Accra High Court on February 10, this year while Asabre, who had been on remand for eight years, as well as Eze, who was also arrested in connection with robbery, were both granted bail by an Accra High Court in February this year.
As to why Asabre was on remand for eight years, DCOP Atinga said there could be a multiplicity of factors including long adjournments due to unavailability of prosecution witnesses.
With regard to the car snatching incidents, ACP Yohuno said at about 11:30 p.m. on April 4, 2010, Kofi Nyarko and Adam Ibrahim chartered a taxi at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to Abeka La Paz.
He said on the way, the two attempted to strangle the driver, but another taxi driver who was driving behind them saw the incident and shouted for help.
ACP Yohuno said some neighbours came out of their houses to help apprehend the suspects.
According to him, when Nyarko and Ibrahim were sent to the police, they allegedly confessed to snatching four cars and sending them to one Jones Kumah in Kumasi for re-spraying and re-numbering for sale.
ACP Yohuno said the two men also confessed that a taxi they were taking to Kumasi was abandoned at Bunso after it developed a fault and indicated that the car was later retrieved from Suhum.
He said with the help of the Ashanti Regional Police Command, Kumah was arrested on April 14, 2010 and four cars retrieved from him.
He said Ibrahim Seidu was arrested at Adenta Housing Down at about 10:30 p.m. on March 29, 2010, barely two hours after the police had received a distress call that a Toyota RAV 4 had been seized from its owner at the Hydraform Estates.

One person arrested over Danladi's murder

2010-04-22T00:53:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, April 17, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE police in Bawku have arrested one person in connection with the shooting of a 53-year-old man at Mishiga near Bawku on Thursday night.
The deceased, Abdulai Awudu Danladi, was allegedly shot at about 8pm while having dinner with his wife, who also sustained gunshot wounds.
Danladi is said to be the New Patriotic Party (NPP) polling station chairman at Mishiga.
The Bawku Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Kwaku Buadu Peprah, could, however, not readily disclose the name of the suspect arrested because he was not immediately in the office and was not up to date with investigations conducted as of the time the Daily Graphic spoke to him on phone.
Danladi’s wife is responding to treatment at the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital.
Chief Supt. Peprah said the police would get to the bottom of the matter and apprehend the culprits who were behind the shooting.
Questions are being raised about how the assailants could carry out their deadly mission amid tight security in place at Bawku and its environs particularly when a 4:00pm-6:00am curfew had been imposed.

Huge challenges at Passport Office

2010-04-22T00:47:00.001-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, April 15, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
BARELY three weeks into the launch of Ghana’s biometric passport, the Passport Office is facing major difficulties in coping with the large number of applicants seeking to acquire the new passport.
Although it is still within the time-frame for setting up passport application centres in seven areas, the centre at the Passport Office, which was initially set up to handle diplomatic, service and other dignitary passport processing, is currently the only operational one.
The main Accra centre is due to come on stream next week, to be followed by that of Sunyani the week after. Other areas earmarked to have the initial centres are Kumasi, Tamale, Ho and Sekondi/Takoradi.
Under the arrangement, the centres are to receive and process applications, after which they will be submitted to the Passport Office for vetting and issuance.
When the Daily Graphic visited the centre yesterday, anxious applicants had gathered both outside and inside the premises in a disorderly manner, with some security men taking advantage of the situation with the view to assisting people to acquire the passports.
It came to light that there were some applicants who had valid passports but had gone to change them for biometric ones.
Apart from the data capturing which slowed the process, people with valid machine readable passports had also joined the fray to have the new passports.
The Deputy Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Mr Chris Kpodo, who was on a surprise visit to the centre, in the company of the sector Minister, Alhaji Mohammad Mumuni, had to order a policeman in uniform out of the place when the policeman claimed he was there to visit a friend.
Touched by the anxiety and agony of the applicants, Alhaji Mumuni directed the Passport Office to provide tents and seats for them.
He described the situation on the ground as worrying and disturbing and urged the directors of the office to review and respond effectively to the challenges.
He was hopeful that when the Accra main centre came on stream, it would reduce the pressure on both officials and applicants and the challenges in the system.
He urged those with valid passports to continue to use them until they expired, since they could still use them until November 2015.
The Director of Passports, Ms Afua Benneh, described the challenges as teething problems associated with the start of every project and gave the assurance that the security system would also be quickly reviewed to sanitise the system.

Marine Police Unit to be re-established

2010-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Page 32: Daily Graphic, April 14, 2010.
Police Marine Unit (security agencies)
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Administration is to re-establish the Marine Police Unit to provide security at the various oil sites and deal resolutely with crimes associated with the oil and gas industry.
The unit is also to enable the police to position themselves to deal with crimes such as diversion, bunkering, sabotage, arson, piracy and hostage-taking, as well as smuggling of weapons, narcotic drugs and other contraband items at 304 landing sites in 185 villages along the coastline.
The unit will also support the Railways and Ports Unit of police, whose work is concentrated at the Tema and Takoradi ports.
The Police Administration is also collaborating with other security agencies to fashion a holistic framework of a security network aimed at giving maximum protection to both the offshore and onshore infrastructural facilities, equipment, oil and gas resources, as well the human resources that would be deployed on the platforms, rigs, sites and the surrounding environments.
Speaking at the beginning of a four-day capacity building workshop for the core personnel of the unit, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, said the training would provide the personnel with knowledge and skills relevant to policing in the oil and gas industry.
Mr Quaye said whilst many had high hopes of economic breakthroughs emerging from the oil industry, others were very sceptical and pointed fingers to the possible adverse ramification arising from the upcoming industry.
“Undoubtedly, these fears, trepidation and anxieties are the products of careful observations made from the rather unpleasant experiences of the situations in other African countries,” he noted.
Given the operational dynamics and complexities of the modern oil and gas industry and the wealth of experiences and daunting challenges of countries such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Libya, Mr Quaye said it was urgent for Ghana to develop and build the requisite human resource capacities in preparation for the commencement of business activities associated with the oil industry.
He said the decision to re-establish the Marine Police Unit was part of some pre-emptive measures adopted after a careful situation analysis of some security threats envisaged that were likely to be encountered with a booming offshore oil and gas industry.
Mr Quaye said Ghana’s portion of the Gulf of Guinea would become an extremely busy area with its attendant conflicting interests due to the tremendous increase in the number of sea-going vessels.
He noted that the local fisher folk, whose environment would be adversely affected, would be aggrieved, a situation which could precipitate possible open confrontations.
The IGP said the multiplicity of businesses and influx of wealthy expatriates would have its potential conflicts of business and socio-cultural interests, complex financial transactions and an increased fraudulent undertakings, which would become fertile grounds for business rivalries and associated vindictive and retaliatory crimes.
He said the Police Administration also anticipated that the high demand for land by so-called business investors in the oil find area would trigger off land disputes and conflicts between clans and families.
According to him, the fallout of those developments would create operational challenges for the maintenance of law and order.
Mr Quaye, however, gave the assurance that the Ghana Police Service was up to the task as it already had a well-established Railways and Ports Unit with its dominant operational activities centred at the Tema and Takoradi ports.
He said a Divisional Police Command with the necessary infrastructure and human resources in the Half Assini area was to be created to deal with the anticipated tasks and challenges ahead.
The head of Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution Department (CPMRD) of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre, Dr Kwesi Aning, who is a resource person, commended the Police Administration for its foresight in establishing the various units to deal with the challenges associated with the oil find.

2 Suspected armed robbers lynched

2010-04-12T00:33:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, April 12, 2010.
Story: Albert Salia
Two suspected armed robbers were allegedly lynched by a mob at Sakaman in Accra yesterday morning.
They have been identified as Gideon Dodzi and the other only as Madina. Their bodies have been deposited at the Police Hospital mortuary.
Two others, however, managed to escape. A bag containing provisions which they allegedly stole from a shop, a cutter and a spanner suspected to have been used to break into the shop were retrieved from the scene of the robbery at Sakaman.
The Accra Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Rose Bio Atinga, told newsmen yesterday that the owner of the shop (name withheld), while on his way to the mosque to pray at 4.55 a.m., saw men in front of his store at Sakaman and asked them to leave the place
She said on the owner’s return from the mosque, he saw that the two men had been lynched, while his store had been broken into, with a “Ghana Must Go” bag loaded with provisions from the shop lying close to the lynched men.
DCOP Atinga said the shop owner reported the matter to the Odorkor Police at 8:30 a.m. yesterday.
She said investigations had so far revealed that the four robbers were all residents of Abuja on the Graphic Road and pledged the commitment of the police to apprehend the two escapees.
The Regional Police Commander, however, appealed to the public not to take the law into their own hands when they arrested criminals.

Pastor gunned down * Wife also shot

2010-04-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, April 9, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Founder and Leader of the Jehovah Shalom Church, popularly known as Canaan, at Gomoa Achiase, Pastor Kweku Bentum, was last Wednesday night gunned down by unknown assailants in a sordid act of anarchy that appears to be engulfing the Ghanaian society.
As if killing the pastor was not enough for the perpetrators, his wife, Mrs Margaret Bentum, who responded to a distress call from her husband, was also shot by the assailants and she is currently on admission at the Agona Swedru Government Hospital.
Five persons, suspected to be behind Pastor Bentum’s murder, have been arrested by the Gomoa Achiase Police.
A sixth person, who is believed to be the principal architect of the act, Peter Abatole, is currently on the run.
Those arrested are Adams Kassena Nakani, an in-law of Abatole’s, Abukari Adams, Francis Arhin, Cosmos Baah Yirenkyi and a woman identified by the police only as Adjoba.
The police have also retrieved the gun suspected to have been used in the pastor’s murder.
The Agona Swedru Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Owusu Donyinah, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that Pastor Bentum was due to give evidence against Peter Abatole in court today, Friday, April 9, 2010 in a case in which Abatole had been charged for stealing.
He said Abatole had been arrested on April 2, 2010 for stealing sheep.
According to him, the court granted Abatole bail on April 5, 2010 to appear again on April 9, 2010 and Pastor Bentum was to give evidence for the prosecution.
Chief Supt Donyinah said Pastor Bentum was almost at the entrance of his house when he was shot last Wednesday night.
He said the pastor screamed for help and when his wife rushed out of the house to go to his aid, she was also shot.
He said the pastor died on the spot, while his wife was rushed to hospital for treatment.
Chief Supt Donyinah said the five persons were arrested on suspicion that they might be involved in the murder.
According to him, Nakani allegedly told the police that he had been out hunting at the time of the incident and could not have been involved.
He said when Nakani was asked to produce his gun, he denied owning one and admitted ownership of the gun only after it had been retrieved from his house after a search.
Chief Supt Donyinah said the police had mounted a search for Abatole and appealed to members of the public, especially those within the area, to provide the police with any information that might lead to Abatole’s arrest.

Suspected armed robber arrested

2010-04-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, April 7, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A suspected armed robber who has been on the police wanted list for the past eight months has finally been arrested.
The suspect, Mawuli Dogbe, 35, is said to have been a member of an armed robbery gang led by one George Aryeetey, who was arrested on July 22, 2009.
Also known as Shorti, the suspect was arrested at the Valco Flats Market, where he claimed he was waiting for a friend, on April 4, 2010.
Shorti reportedly told the police during interrogation that he had only gone on five robbery expeditions with Aryeetey.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Christian Tetteh Yahuno, said although the police arrested the kingpin of the robbery gang, it decided to continue to search for all the other members of the gang.
He said the police had been successful in arresting a number of gang members who were led by Aryeetey but explained that gang leaders often organised different groups for various operations.
He explained that the fight against armed robbery and other criminal activities was not limited to known members only.
ACP Yahuno said Shorti claimed that he had been on five different robbery expeditions with Aryeetey and other persons but could only remember the names of Stanley, Aryeetey and Emma, a Nigerian.
He said the suspect could only mention Adjiringano as one of the five areas they operated but could not list the others, with the excuse that he had not known Accra and its suburbs very well.

Police to clamp down on lawlessness

2010-04-08T01:02:00.001-07:00

Page 12: Daily Graphic, April 5, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Administration has directed all police commands in the country to clamp down on any acts of lawlessness and indiscipline.
It has, therefore, warned individuals and social, religious and political groupings to refrain from activities that tend to breach the Public Order Act and the peace in the country.
In an interview, the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, DSP Kwesi Ofori, said the police would deal firmly and decisively with any person or group of persons who would take the law into their own hands to cause any disturbances, irrespective of their status or social and political affiliation.
He reminded members of the public that the Public Order Act, Act 491 enjoined individuals and group of persons intending to embark on any public event such as demonstrations and rallies to inform the police at least five clear days before the event.
“People who disregard this provision do so at their own risk, as the police will not hesitate to clamp down on them in full force,” he warned.
DSP Ofori said the necessary measures had been put in place to ensure that the country continued to enjoy peace and security at all times.
He said information on alleged breach of the law that had come to the notice of the police was being investigated for appropriate action.
He described as unfortunate a statement attributed to the Yendi District Police Command that it could not arrest any of the youth threatening to kill the Yendi Metropolitan Chief Executive because the issue was too political for the police to dabble in and that no one had made a formal complaint to it.
He explained that “crime is crime” and the police had nothing to fear when handling criminal issues.
“In matters of lawlessness and threat to security, the police have nothing to with politics. It is about life and death and that is what we have been employed and trained to deal with. Criminality has no political party, religion, ethnic or any background,” he said.
Some NDC youth in Yendi last Saturday threatened to kill the Yendi MCE after accusing him of incompetence and lack of vision in championing the cause of the party and the government and creating division among the NDC rank and file in the area.
In the face of widespread condemnation, the irate youth had remained intransigent, justifying their behaviour by arguing that they resorted to violence only after the government failed to heed their persistent calls for the MCE to be sacked.
The Yendi District Police Commander, DSP Patrick Blepoe, told Joy News on Tuesday that his hands were tied because the issue was more political than criminal.
“This is a party affair involving the regional minister, who is the Chairman of the Regional Security Committee, so if we have not been instructed to carry out any arrest, we cannot act,” he said.
A security expert, Mr Emmanuel Sowatey, reacting to the position of the police on the matter, said it was a reflection of the fear security personnel entertained when it came to enforcing the law regarding members of political parties in power.
Mr Sowatey said in the security services, “the decisions you take, even if professionally right, may go a long way in affecting your prospects in terms of promotion and where you are sent to serve”.
The fears expressed by the police, according to him, were well grounded because they had seen many cases in which their colleagues who tried to be assertive and independent-minded got victimised.
“Political interference is one deadly element that affects conflicts across the nation and until such a time that we put state security above regime security, we are going to continue to have that problem,” he stated.
Mr Sowatey, however, noted that the situation was worrying because to strengthen institutions of state within the country’s fledging democracy, security personnel must live above fear and intimidation, no matter where threats were coming from.

"Use Easter to start afresh"

2010-04-01T00:39:00.001-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, April 1, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
LEADERS of three prominent churches in the country have called on Ghanaians to use the Easter season to bury their differences and begin a new life of a united people with a common destiny.
They said the vices of selfishness, disobedience, anger, evil desire, greed, corruption, as well as disrespect and intolerance, must be buried together with Jesus Christ on Good Friday.
According to them, a new life of love, unity, patience, forgiveness, reconciliation and justice should permeate the lives of Ghanaians with the resurrection of Christ.
The religious leaders — the Most Rev Dr Emmanuel Asante, the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana; Rev Dr Fred Deegbe, the Head Pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church and General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, and the Rt Rev Dr Yaw Frimpong-Manso, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana — made the calls in Easter messages to Ghanaians.
The Most Rev Dr Asante called on Ghanaians to use the Easter activities to bury their weaknesses and negative tendencies.
He said from the Christian perspective, Good Friday afforded Christians the opportunity to die with Christ, explaining that past sins, negativity and weaknesses among Christians were buried and went down to the grave as Christ was buried.
He said Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday, therefore, afforded believers to start afresh in all aspects of their lives.
“For the nation, Easter should afford us the opportunity to leave behind us those negativities of the past and grab the opportunity God has given us to forge ahead in all aspects of our politico-socio-economic lives anew,” he stated.
“Yesterday is gone and a new day has dawned. Let us forget past acrimony and open a new leaf and forge ahead as a people blessed with this nation, Ghana, and abundant resources. These blessings, including the discovery of oil, should unite us to agree to disagree to work with one another in the newness of the life that has become ours through the Easter experience,” the Most Rev Dr Asante added.
For his part, Rev Dr Deegbe called on Ghanaians to use the occasion to reconcile themselves with God and their neighbours.
He said the reconciliation should unite Ghanaians more strongly for the betterment of the country and noted that if Christians put the message of reconciliation, unity and sacrifice into practice, it would move Ghana ahead.
“In this memorable season, the time Christians mark the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we should reconcile ourselves to God and to our neighbours and remain united as a people,” he said.
Rev Dr Deegbe called on law enforcement agencies to use the occasion to do their work diligently to maintain peace, law and order in society.
At a news conference to deliver his Easter message, the Rt Rev Dr Frimpong-Manso urged Ghanaians to exhibit the attitude of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, unity, justice, as well as hope, reports Matilda Attram.
He said Easter was a time for Christians to reflect and renew their lives and relationship with the Creator.
“This means throwing away the old life of selfishness and disobedience to God. It may mean confessing a theft, giving up some negative behaviour — be it anger, evil desire, greed or saying sorry to someone,” he said.
The Rt Rev Dr Frimpong-Manso, whose message was on the theme, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ Gives Hope”, explained that Easter was a period which reminded Christians of the need to remain hopeful in God, pointing out that the resurrection of Christ gave new hope for a new life in everything they did.
He described life without Christ as one full of crises, failure, darkness, fear, sin and death which one could not endure.
Reacting to recent societal problems and challenges, he stressed the need for Ghanaians to pray for God’s intervention.
"We live in challenging times, a period when one has to live by faith and not by sight. Through all changing scenes of life, therefore, in trouble and in joy, I urge you all to hold on to your faith, continue to believe just as you did and the Lord shall strengthen your faith," he stated.
The Rt Rev Dr Frimpong-Manso advised all to refrain from immoral activities during the season and rather be motivated to observe the season with faith and confidence that joy in Christ was everlasting.

Court remands music teacher

2010-04-01T00:38:00.000-07:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, April 1, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
AN Accra circuit court has remanded Gideon Nana Ofei Dodoo, a music teacher of the Great Lamptey Mills Institute, into police custody for further investigations into his alleged defilement of a nine-year-old pupil of the institute.
His plea was not taken and the court, presided over by Mrs Georgina Mensah Datsa, remanded him into custody until April 6, 2010.
The suspect had gone into hiding since March 19, 2010 when the police started looking for him, after a complaint had been lodged that he had allegedly defiled a pupil of the institute in November 2009.
He was, however, arrested on March 25, 2010 and the case was accordingly referred to the Accra Regional office of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service.
The Head of DOVVSU, DSP Owusua Kyeremeh, said the suspect was scheduled to re-appear on April 6, 2010, by which time the police would have conducted more investigations into the matter.
Police sources said a medical report had confirmed that the victim’s private part had been dangerously tampered with.
Dodoo was alleged to have defiled the victim in November 2009 but warned her not to inform anyone about it.
The victim claimed that Dodoo told her she would die if she informed anyone about it, as a result of which she said she had to endure the abuse in a toilet where Dodoo always had carnal knowledge of her.
The girl claimed Dodoo would usually ask her to wait for everyone to leave or when the school was very quiet before taking her into the toilet to defile her.
The victim’s mother, however, detected changes in the girl and, upon interrogation, she informed her mother that it was the music teacher who had been sexually abusing her.
The victim’s mother reported the matter to the police on March 19, 2010 and also indicated in her complaint that when she went to the school, the authorities allegedly wanted to “settle” her to keep the matter silent.

Housing development being compromised * SHC boss

2010-03-30T00:23:00.001-07:00

Page 24: Daily Graphic, March 30, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Managing Director of the State Housing Company (SHC), Mr Mark Nii Akwei Ankrah, says the emergence of slums in urban centres indicate that human development is being compromised.
He said the failure to holistically address the challenges of planning meant that slums would continue to emerge no matter how good and well-intentioned government policies were.
Speaking during a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) Mr Ibrahim Awal, in Accra yesterday, Mr Ankrah said the SHC was to be reinvigorated to pursue a social housing scheme that would address the housing needs of Ghanaians.
In line with that, he said, a national housing road show would be organised this year to tour the various regions and climax it with a National Housing Conference to bring all stakeholders on board to streamline housing ownership.
Mr Ankrah said what currently existed in the country was a real estate enterprise, which did not factor in the needs of many Ghanaians.
According to him, home ownership was a gradual process but the present system made it appear that it was a one-stop process.
He said he was leading the SHC to revert to its core business of a social housing scheme provider through which prospective home owners would be assisted to own houses.
He said the company was also re-engineering its existing stock of houses through re-development and building of new ones with affordable high quality materials and to suit the needs of owners.
Mr Ankrah said the era of horizontal buildings in urban centres was over and it was important that vertical development was seen as the way out.
He said the vision of achieving affordable and quality houses would require the use of local materials and planning needs of the beneficiary communities, stressing that it should not be a wholesale package of using only a particular building material for all houses across the country.
He cited for instance that the use of clay and other materials could reduce the cost of pavements in the urban centres instead of cement.
“We are bringing in a lot of innovation and flexibility in the design of housing with the ultimate owner or user in mind,” he said.
Mr Ankrah stressed the need for Ghanaians to de-politicise the housing sector, adopt a collective responsibility and think outside the box to address the housing needs.
He explained that despite the low-key activities of the SHC, the company had been acquiring large tracts of land and would make them available for prospective home owners.
He said the company had set up a Professional Advisory Unit to assist prospective home owners, companies and interested groups in instituting home owning scheme for staff.
Mr Ankrah said the company would depend on the media, particularly the GCGL, to educate the populace on housing.
He also expressed concern about the challenges in house numbering in the country, as local assemblies often provided different house numbers other than what were provided by estate firms to their owners and, thus, created problems for identification and use of housings for business transactions.
Mr Awal pledged the support of the GCGL to partner the SHC to educate the populace.
He noted that housing was key in the socio-economic life of Ghanaians and it was, therefore, important that the populace were not only informed but educated as well on the sector.

Another case of defilement at Great Lamptey-Mills

2010-03-29T00:16:00.001-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, March 27, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A MUSIC teacher of Great Lamptey Mills Institute, Gideon Nana Ofei Dodoo, 26, has been arrested by the police for allegedly defiling a nine-year-old pupil of the school.
Police sources said a medical report had confirmed that the victim’s private part had been dangerously tampered with.
Dodoo was alleged to have gone into hiding since March 19, 2010 when the police started looking for him.
He was, however, arrested on Thursday, after school authorities assisted the police to locate his house.
The Tesano Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Emmanuel Bossoh, told the Daily Graphic that the suspect was alleged to have defiled the victim in November, 2009 but had warned her not to inform anyone about it.
He said the victim claimed that Dodoo told her she would die, if she informed anyone about it.
According to him, the victim said she had to endure the abuse in a toilet where Dodoo always had carnal knowledge of her.
Chief Supt Bossoh said the girl claimed Dodoo would usually ask her to wait for everyone to leave or when the school was very quiet.
He said the victim’s mother, however, detected the changes in the girl and upon interrogation, the girl informed her it was the Music teacher who had been sexually abusing her.
Chief Supt. Bossoh said the victim’s mother reported the matter to the police on March 19, 2010 and also indicated in her complaint that when she went to the school, the authorities allegedly wanted to “settle” her to keep the matter silent.
At the time of filing this report, Chief Supt. Bossoh said the docket was to be referred to the Accra Regional office of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) to take over the investigations.

Injunction against Methodist Church

2010-03-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, March 27, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE embattled Administrative Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana, Rt Rev Kow Bosomefi Egyir, on Thursday obtained an interlocutory injunction against the church from holding its extraordinary conference.
The conference, which was to have deliberated on recommendations of the Disciplinary Committee’s Report on the alleged sexual misconduct of Bishop Egyir, was postponed after the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana, Most Rev Emmanuel Asante-Antwi, was served with the injunction.
The church has, however, applied to the Human Rights Court to set aside the injunction.
According to the reliefs sought by Bishop Egyir, the procedures adopted by the Disciplinary Committee were in violation of the church’s constitution.
Moreover, he (Bishop Egyir) was also not given an opportunity to be heard.
It was also the contention of Bishop Egyir that he did not know the complainant or who was complaining and what was being complained about.
Confirming the development in an interview, Most Rev Asante-Antwi said as a law-abiding institution, the church had to comply with the orders of the court.
He said the church, however, took the necessary steps thereafter and had accordingly applied to set the injunction aside.
He explained that as the highest decision-making body of the church, Conference would have to validate or nullify any recommendation by any sub-unit of the church.
Bishop Egyir, who is currently on suspension and holidaying in the United States of America (USA), is alleged to have sexually misconducted himself by allegedly raping the 23-year-old daughter of another high-ranking member of the church.
The alleged victim, a student in a tertiary institution in Ghana, was alleged to have been sent by her father to deliver a parcel to the bishop when the incident allegedly took place.
Bishop Egyir was summoned to appear before the Disciplinary Committee of the church by February 3, 2010.
He was suspended after he had allegedly admitted before a pastoral committee set up to investigate the matter that he had misconducted himself sexually.

Ayariga receives US trade delegation

2010-03-29T00:14:00.000-07:00

Page 32: Daily Graphic, March 27, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Mahama Ayariga has pledged the government’s commitment to create a conducive business environment to help reduce the cost of doing business in the country.
He said the government acknowledged the challenges of non-availability of capital and technological skills as handicaps which greatly affected the private sector and investment generally.
Speaking during a courtesy call on him by a Louisiana State trade delegation, Mr Ayariga said the government would initiate policies that would reduce the cost of doing business in the country.
He said there already existed incentives in investing in the Free Zones and the deprived areas, particularly in the northern part of the country.
He said the US government continued to support Ghana through a number of initiatives and noted in particular training support being provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Commercial Counsellor of the US Embassy in Accra, Ms Heather Byrnes, who led the team to the ministry, described the response and support of the government and companies to the delegation as tremendous.

Minister gets tough on shoddy jobs

2010-03-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

Page 24: Daily Graphic, March 25, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
ALL contractors, engineers and consultants who undertake, certify and get paid for shoddy jobs at the expense of the taxpayer are to be blacklisted by the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing.
The move has become necessary following the realisation that some firms undertake projects but those projects become non-functional after they have been inaugurated.
The sector minister, Mr Alban Bagbin, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the ministry was revisiting the possibility of enforcing technical standards in development projects as part of efforts to reduce, if not eliminate, shoddy jobs by contractors and engineers.
He noted that some firms undertook shoddy jobs but got certified and paid for non-operational systems.
He cited the last major works on the Weija pumping station, which was inaugurated in November 2008 but had remained non-functional ever since it was constructed.
Mr Bagbin said the situation had contributed immensely to the water problem facing residents in the Accra and Tema metropolitan areas and indicated that those blacklisted would never be awarded government contracts again.
He noted that although 1,920 cubic millimetres of water was needed for daily urban water supply in 2010, only 634.740 cubic millimetres was produced, leaving a shortfall of 1,285.260 millimetres for managers of the country’s urban water systems to manage.
He said the ministry had outlined a short to medium and long-term strategy to address the water needs of Ghanaians.
In the short-term, the ministry was seeking to address the challenges of sources of water supply, the production, distribution, uses and sustainability of water.
Mr Bagbin said a major challenge to address seriously was that of training the personnel and making them to be disciplined and responsive, passionate and committed to their duties.
“We have a critical number of experienced and knowledgeable personnel but it is important to inspire them to be disciplined and productive,” he said.
He said the short-term objectives also called for more vigilance and protection of the distribution networks to avoid vandalism and tampering of water facilities.
That, he said, would also mean meeting some key users such as hospitals, educational institutions and industries to solicit their assistance in the rationalisation and control of water usage.
Mr Bagbin said the essence of the short-term programme was to reduce the percentage of unaccountable water to liberate the systems to ensure equitable distribution.
He said the percentage of unaccountable water had been put at more than 50 per cent but was quick to add that that amount included water supplied freely to government facilities.
He said that would also call for extensive metering of both government and private sector players to determine the quantum of free water being given out.
In the medium-term, he said, the ministry was seeking to replace all pieces of obsolete equipment and concentrate on the maintenance of the rest to make them functional.
He said the ministry had instituted a buffer zone programme under which people would be encouraged to plant economic trees along the banks of water basins.
Mr Bagbin said the programme was in place at Bawku and indicated that an impact assessment of the programme would soon be done so that it would be replicated in all other areas.
He said there was also a programme to get the youth involved in all activities of the Water Resources Commission so as to catch them young to appreciate the importance of protecting, conserving and managing the country’s water resources.
He said the Water Resources Commission had taken delivery of kits to help individuals along water bodies and water systems to measure the pollution levels of those water bodies so as to help them appreciate the effects of activities on the water sources and their attendant health hazards to the populace.
Mr Bagbin said a heavy dose of investment was required in the long term to address the production and distribution chain but that, he indicated, required a better management system to convince investors to pump money into the sector.
He said the ministry would, therefore, provide leadership to implement good programmes to win the confidence of all stakeholders.

Mumuni launches bio-passports

2010-03-24T00:03:00.001-07:00

Page 25: Daily Graphic, March 24, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Muhammed Mumuni, yesterday launched Ghana’s biometric passports with a call on Ghanaians with valid passports not to rush for the biometric ones.
He said the current generation of machine readable passports would be in use until November 24, 2015, and, therefore, any rush for the biometric passports by even those with valid passports would put unnecessary pressure on the Passport Office.
The launch attracted members of government, Diplomatic Corps, officials of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ghana Police Service, among others.
With the launch yesterday, Ghana thus joins Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to be issuing biometric passports.
A Ghanaian company, Buck Press Limited, has been contracted to produce the passport booklets and also set up the Passport Application Centres (PACs).
Under the arrangements, Ecobank, the National Investment Bank, the Ghana Commercial Bank and the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) would sell the passport application forms until such time that selected Ghana Post offices would be included.
A Mobile Passport Application Centre has also been set up to facilitate the applications of physically challenged persons in various institutions.
Alhaji Mumuni said only those in possession of hand-written passports were obliged to change them by April 1, 2010.
Fortunately, he said, some Ghanaians in the Diaspora were in possession of the hand-written passports and indicated that efforts were underway to replace all of them before the April 1, 2010 deadline.
He said the ministry recognised that there would be initial challenges and, therefore, appealed to applicants to exercise restraint, co-operate and support the Passport Office during the early days of the programme.
On the choice of colours for the passports, Alhaji Mumuni explained that the red, blue and green for Diplomatic, Service and Ordinary passports were in conformity with ECOWAS integration agenda.
Alhaji Mumuni said with the commencement of issuance of the biometric passports, there was going to be a reduction of identity theft and other problems associated with the old passports.
He commended the media, particularly the Daily Graphic, which had been in the forefront of educating the public on the transition to biometric passports.
He also expressed appreciation to members of the National Implementation Committee, which was established in 2005, for their dedication and commitment to the successful launch.
Alhaji Mumuni was hopeful that with time, the PACs would be decentralised throughout the country to make them more accessible to Ghanaians.
The acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ambassador Lawrence Satuh, said the biometric passport was intended to enhance the dignity of Ghanaians anywhere in the world when they came face to face with immigration and other security agencies.
He noted that the introduction of the biometric passports would not be welcome news to middlemen, passport contractors and connection men, who made it their business to stand between genuine applicants for passports and the issuing authority for their personal gain.
He, therefore, warned them to desist from resorting to any kind of sabotage tactics, since the security agencies had been alerted to deal with them.
The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador Victor James Gbeho, in an address read on his behalf, described the launch as a significant milestone towards regional integration.

$5,000 ROBBERY * Four cops interdicted

2010-03-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, March 23, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Administration has interdicted four policemen who allegedly attacked and robbed a Belgian national of $5,000, GH¢700 and other personal effects.
The four policemen are Lance Corporal David Koomson of the Panthers Unit; L/Cpl Franklin Turkson of the James Town Police Station; Constable Isaac Shiburah of the Police Hospital and Constable Edward Opoku of the Armoured Car Squadron.
Corporals Shiburah and Opoku are on the run, while L/Cpls Koomson and Turkson, who appeared before the Osu Magistrate Court yesterday on charges of conspiracy to rob and robbery, have been remanded in prison custody to reappear on March 30, 2010.
They will also face a service enquiry.
The Police Administration has, subsequently, placed a handsome bounty on Shiburah and Opoku.
Briefing newsmen in Accra yesterday, the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Kwesi Ofori, said the complainant, Thierry Boinnard, a Belgian resident in the USA, was suspected to have been lured into the country by two unidentified men.
He said the two unidentified men met the complainant at the Fiesta Royale Hotel and took him in a taxi to show him a gold refinery.
On reaching a spot near the main entrance of the Achimota Forest, four policemen in a black VW Golf, with registration number AS 3115 T, allegedly intercepted the taxi carrying the Belgian and the two other men.
According to DSP Ofori, the policemen handcuffed the complainant, beat him and took him to a spot near the Kumbaya Hotel, behind Peace FM in Accra, where the four policemen allegedly robbed the complainant of $5,000, GH¢700, a mobile phone worth $1,000 and a gold wristwatch valued at $25.
He said following a public announcement on an Accra-based radio station that some policemen had robbed a foreigner, all the patrol teams were alerted with the description of the VW Golf car the policemen were driving.
He said one of the patrol teams saw a VW Golf being driven by a policeman around the Achimota Golf Club and stopped it.
He said after initial interrogation, the policeman/driver was arrested and driven to the CID Headquarters for further questioning and it was in the course of that that the policeman allegedly admitted to committing the offence and mentioned the names of the others.
DSP Ofori described the two escapees as a risk to society and, therefore, appealed to members of the public to volunteer information leading to their arrest for a handsome reward.

Ghana goes biometric

2010-03-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

Page 16: Daily Graphic, March 20, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
COME Tuesday, March 23, 2010, Ghana will join a number of countries issuing biometric passports to its citizens, in line with an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) demand.
Under the ICAO regimes, it is recommended that member states issue biometric passports by April 1, 2010.
Biometric details are those which are unique to an individual, such as one’s fingerprint, the iris of his/her eye and facial features. Biometric passports are equipped with protection mechanisms to avoid and/or detect attacks.
Biometric passports may have either one or two modes of data storage. In one mode, the biodata of the holder is on a micro-chip embedded in the passport, while in the alternative storage mechanism, the biodata is stored in a two-dimensional (2D) Bar Code.
The main difference between the two modes of storage is that the micro-chip has a bigger storage capacity, although it is susceptible to identity theft or could easily be hacked into by hackers and could be easily damaged, while data stored on a 2D Bar Code is more secure and cannot be accessed without the authority of the holder.
Moreover, the cost of acquiring a biometric passport with a micro-chip is four times higher than that of 2D Bar Code biometric passport.
It has also been proven that illegal organisations, with the appropriate technology, have been able to access biometric passports embedded with micro-chips and managed to alter the data on the chips without the knowledge of either the holders or the passport-issuing authorities, especially in the United Kingdom and Belgium. Sophisticated equipment are also required to read biometric passports embedded with micro-chips but these may not be available at border posts which do not have regular supply of electricity.
Ghana’s choice of biometric passport seems to have been informed by the fact that the biometric passport is more secure because the data or information in the 2D Bar Code cannot be accessed unless the holder surrenders the passport. More so, the 2D biometric passport is more robust while the 2D Bar Code cannot be damaged unless the whole passport is destroyed.
The equipment used to read the 2D Bar Code is also readily available at almost all border posts and does not depend on electrical power and the price is also moderate.
The main disadvantage of the biometric passport is that the storage space in the 2D Bar Code is not as large as that of the e-passport.
Features of Ghana’s Biometric Passports
The paper used for this is a security-grade UV dead paper which is available only in Ghanaian passports and also contains the watermark image of the Supreme Court. As most fraudsters use solvents and acids to alter the passport, the paper contains chemicals, solvents and acids that make duplication impossible.
The background colours fuse in a predetermined shift from one colour to another and also have anti-photocopy and anti-scan designs which make all scanned or photocopied documents useless as they appear ‘moiré’. The passport also has a dual channel intaglio frame which increases its security and makes fraudulent representation impossible. As a result of the intaglio, a hidden image is only visible at a 90-degree angle.
The passport number is visible as black in natural daylight and fluoresces to green under UV light while the use of two-tone invisible fluorescent ultraviolet image and text for the Parliament building and Adinkra symbols make them invisible to the naked eye but can be seen with the use of an ultraviolet lamp.
On page numbering, ladder formation of the page numbers along the edge of the booklet prevents the removal and insertion of non-genuine pages. The pages are also perforated through a laser process, which fortifies its security.
Categories of Biometric Passports to be issued.
There are three categories of biometric passports to be launched; the Diplomatic, Service and Ordinary passports which are issued to citizens on the basis of their status.
Persons to be issued with diplomatic passports include some members of the First Family, ministers, deputy ministers, regional ministers, Members of Parliament, metropolitan/municipal/district chief executives and diplomats accredited to foreign countries.
The diplomatic passport has a red front cover with the national coat-of-arms embossed on the back. The service passport, which has a blue cover, however, is issued to public servants proceeding on overseas training courses or persons empowered to perform specific duties in another country, on behalf of the government .
The ordinary passport, or green-cover passport, is issued to ordinary citizens and naturalised non-Ghanaians who apply for Ghanaian passports.
This passport captures a holder’s facial features and the biometric data of fingerprints which link the holder to the passport. The mode of application and acquisition is that the owner’s biometric data is initially captured and later verified to ensure the right ownership on delivery.
This is expected to help curb fraud, prevent multiple ownership of passports, identity theft and lead to the apprehension of people who may indulge in international acts of terrorism, money laundering and drug smuggling.

Mode of Acquisition
A prospective applicant is first expected to purchase a passport application form from a designated bank or an approved point of sale in the regional capitals and other centres.
The applicant subsequently fills the forms and submits the completed form to the nearest Passport Application Centre (PAC) in Accra, Kumasi, Sunyani, Sekondi/Takoradi, Ho or Tamale, together with relevant documents such as an old passport or birth certificate as evidence of payment to commence the application process. The PACs function as centres for demographic and biometric data capture and transfer, as well as distribution of passports.
At the PAC, applicants will be invited to take a digital photograph together with biometric data of fingerprints. Applicants, at this stage, are given submission receipts from the system and a turn-around date of 15 days or less to collect their biometric passport. All processing fees are paid in consonance with the speed of service delivery: The ordinary or expedited categories.
Data Transfer And Vetting
The COP at the Passport Office in Accra will accept all data transferred from the PACs nation-wide. The vetting process begins with the administrative vetting or verification of all demographic data, followed by the biometric vetting involving the passage of both the demographic and biometric data through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). This confirms the validity of the data stored as genuine for the applicant.
Those who already hold an ordinary passport but qualify and apply for Service or Diplomatic passport, will have their stored data transferred for automatic issuance. Data could also be transferred by the COP to border posts to track down fake passports.
The completed passports are dispatched from the Central Operations Production (COP) unit in Accra to the Passport Application Centre (PAC) where applicants can collect their passports by presenting submission receipts and going through a final biometric check to authenticate ownership of the travel document.

4 Armed robbers nabbed

2010-03-19T00:56:00.001-07:00

Page 25: Daily Graphic, March 19, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE timely response of the police yesterday led to the arrest of four suspected armed robbers at the Nyamekye Junction in Accra after the robbers had raided the house of a sister of a former Minister of Health, Dr Sipa Yankey, at East Legon in Accra.
The suspects — George Owusu Bempah, 25, an electrician; Odartey Lamptey, 23, a steel bender; Roger Agbadi, 24, a labourer, and Kwame Kumah, 23, the house boy at the victim’s residence, are currently in the custody of the police.
A Toyota Camry with registration number GT 844 X, laptops, DVD players, jewellery, a television set, DSTV decoder, a suitcase and about six mobile phones, among other items, were stolen.
The robbers allegedly held the houseboy and the house girl hostage and plastered their mouth before carrying out the robbery.
Roger, George and Odartey reportedly took turns to rape the house girl, who coincidentally happens to be the sister of Kwame Nkrumah, the orchestrator of the robbery.
Kwame is alleged to have taken photographs of his madam’s two vehicles and given them to the robbers ostensibly to show to prospective buyers but to the robbers to choose the car to rob.
In a bid to deceive the victim and the police, the robbers left behind a letter to the victim purporting to have emanated from her former labourer, Kwasi, as having organised his boys to rob her.
At the time of filing this report, the house girl had been sent to the Police Hospital for medical treatment.
Briefing the Daily Graphic after leading the police to arrest the robbers, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, and her deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said the police had a distress call at about 9:30a.m. yesterday that some armed robbers had raided a house on Monrovia Road at East Legon near the Emmanuel Eye Clinic.
She said within 15 minutes that the police got to the scene, the robbers had sped off with the booty.
She said the police pursued the robbers upon hearing that they had taken to the Lapaz road.
According to her, the police fired at the robbers after they refused to stop and surrender themselves to the police.
DCOP Atinga said it was as a result of the shooting that the robbers gave up and were arrested.
ACP Yohuno said three days before yesterday’s incident, an informant had brought the pictures of the two vehicles to the Accra Regional Police Command.
He said the informant had indicated that the robbers were looking for prospective buyers before going to rob the vehicle to sell at GH¢12,000.
He explained that because the registration numbers of the vehicles were covered in the picture, it was extremely difficult to locate the owners of the vehicles.
For his part, a former Minister of Health, Dr Sipa Yankey, whose sister was robbed, expressed appreciation to the Inspector General of Police, Mr Paul Quaye, for the swift response to the call.
He said the timely response of the police showed that with more logistics and motivation, the police would rise up to the occasion.

BIO-PASSPORTS READY * Migration starts Tuesday

2010-03-18T01:49:00.001-07:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, March 18, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
ALL is set for the take-off of Ghana’s migration to the use of biometric passports on Tuesday, March 23, 2010.
So far, the Central Operations and Productions (COP) centre and the two Passport Applications Centres (PACs) for Accra are all ready for the smooth take-off.
Within six weeks of the launch, the PACs in Kumasi, Tamale and Ho will also start receiving biometric passport applications for processing.
The PACs in Sekondi/Takoradi and Sunyani will also be ready to receive and process applications after those in Kumasi, Tamale and Ho have been installed.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that by the middle of this year, all the PACs would be on stream to facilitate the application and acquisition process.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has set April 1, 2010 for all member countries to commence the issuance of machine readable passports incorporating biometric data, while all non-biometric machine readable passports will cease to be accepted as regular travelling documents by other ICAO countries effective November 24, 2015.
That means that Ghanaians in possession of valid old passports can still use them until November 24, 2015.
Already, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has taken delivery of application forms and 750,000 biometric passport booklets ready for the launch.
Under the new regime, new passport fees of GH¢50 and GH¢100 will be charged for ordinary and expedited delivery services, respectively. It is expected that the new biometric passports will be issued between seven and 14 days.
The minister explained that the GH¢50 and GH¢100 covered the cost of the application forms.
Under the programme to migrate from the current generation of passports to biometric ones, seven PACs are to be initially established, with two in Accra and the rest in Tamale, Ho, Sekondi/Takoradi, Kumasi and Sunyani.
The PACs in Accra are located at the East Wing of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration and the Passport Office, where the COP centre, which will be the main point for vetting and issuance, is also located.
Ghana originally scheduled the take-off of the programme for July 2009 but that could not be done for various technical reasons.
Alhaji Mumuni attributed the delay mainly to the non-availability of suitable buildings which could accommodate physically challenged persons.
He said the buildings for the PACs in the regions had been identified and were being refurbished to make them disability friendly.
He appealed to Ghanaians, especially those outside Accra, not to rush to Accra for the biometric passports after the launch but wait patiently until a PAC was opened close to them.
The minister said if there was an urgent need for one to travel, then the person might have to come to Accra.
He said personnel from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other security agencies, including the Ghana Immigration Service, had been trained to man the PACs.
Alhaji Mumuni said Ghana’s missions in London, Rome, Berlin and Washington had been identified to also issue the biometric passports until the time when it would be extended to other missions.
He said applicants would now have to personally submit their application forms at the application centres for their passport photographs to be taken with a high resolution camera, while fingerprints and signatures were also recorded.
“This means that instead of the applicant submitting photographs with a passport application form that is already thumb-printed somewhere, it will now be required that the photograph and the fingerprints of the applicants are taken at the application centres when he presents the forms. This is also intended to eliminate middlemen,” he said.
According to him, applicants would also send along their birth certificates and other documentation, including their national identification cards, to be vetted and scanned into the system at the PAC.
He said the information would be uploaded to the Central Operations and Production Unit of the Passport Office, where the details and certificates would be verified, during which all details would be vetted against the stop list.
Alhaji Mumuni said the forms would then be passed on to the directors for final vetting and authorisation to issue the passports, stressing that “all the processes, with the exception of the final vetting, printing and issuance, are expected to take place on the same day, thus enhancing service delivery”.

Housing project to create more jobs

2010-03-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

Page 72: Daily Graphic, March 18, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
MORE than 75,000 jobs are to be provided under the government’s five-year national housing project, the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Alban Bagbin, has disclosed.
“The construction of the various housing units will engage the services of contractors, artisans, consultants, building materials sellers and suppliers, food vendors, among others,” he added.
Speaking in an interview, Mr Bagbin said the project, which is to be implemented by STX Corporation of Korea, has a minimum of 30 per cent local participation which would ensure that Ghanaians actively participated in the project.
He said construction works on the 200,000 housing units was expected to begin in July, this year and indicated that the agreement between the Ghana government and STX Corporation was expected to be laid before Parliament next week for parliamentary approval to facilitate the take-off of the project.
He said under the first phase of the project, 30,000 housing units would be built for the security agencies as part of the government’s commitment to improve the acute accommodation situation facing the security agencies.
Mr Bagbin said the basic data collection and housing design under the 200,000 national housing project had already been completed.
He said STX Group of Korea, which would undertake the project, would build various industrial plants including a cement plant, rolling mill and autoclaved lightweight concrete plant, while IT would also seek the assistance of the Korean government to set up a training programme with Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Project to help develop Ghanaian human resources.
Mr Bagbin said the Ghana Police Service would benefit from 20,000 of the housing units for its personnel throughout the country in the next five years.
Mr Bagbin said the remaining 10,000 of the housing units allocated to the security agencies would go to the military and other security agencies.
He recalled that the Police Administration suspended enlistment into the service in June last year so as not to aggravate the already exacerbated accommodation problem, noting that the problems hindered recruitment and transfers in the security services “because it is not matched with provision of accommodation”.
Mr Bagbin said the construction of the housing units for the security services would not only help to separate the personnel from the civilian population but would enforce discipline, training and esprit de corps, stressing that “this will also help to mobilise personnel in case of emergency situations, which need urgent response”.

Two soldiers nabbed over assault

2010-03-16T01:38:00.002-07:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, March 16, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
TWO soldiers, one of whom allegedly stabbed a policeman on Sunday, were yesterday handed over to the Nima Police for further investigations.
Corporal Titus Quarcoo of the Recce Regiment and Corporal Dono Dickson of the 49 Engineers at Burma Camp were alleged to have assaulted someone in front of the Nima Police Station and when the police went to the rescue of the victim, Titus allegedly pulled a dagger and stabbed Corporal Prince Sutame of the Nima Police and absconded with his friend.
The Military Police, however, arrested and handed over the two soldiers to the Nima Police upon hearing reports of their conduct.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, said a 23-year-old woman, Josephine Dela Gligo, who was at the centre of the controversy, allegedly sought the assistance of the two soldiers to retrieve her items from her ex-boyfriend.
She said Josephine and the two soldiers went to the residence of her boyfriend, Mr Kwame Sarfo, who is the complainant in the case, in a taxi.
She said when Mr Sarfo returned from church, the three visitors informed him of the reason for the visit.
According to DCOP Atinga, Mr Sarfo asked them to wait for his mother to return from church, as the items were in her room.
She said the soldiers wanted to ruffle Mr Sarfo so he quickly called a policeman to his aid.
The regional commander said when the policeman came, the two soldiers were still unrepentant in their behaviour, threatening to break into Mr Sarfo's mother’s room.
She said the policeman then asked Mr Sarfo to lodge a complaint at the Nima Police Station.
She said unknown to Mr Sarfo, Josephine and the two soldiers had already taken the lead to the police station while he (Sarfo) and the policeman were having their discussion.
At the police station, she said, the two soldiers became unruly, during which Cpl Dickson slapped a friend of Mr Sarfo’s.
DCOP Atinga said in the ensuing confusion, some policemen went to the victim’s rescue but Cpl Quarcoo pulled a dagger and stabbed Cpl Sutame.
Regrettably, she said, Josephine denied soliciting the assistance of the soldiers to retrieve her items from Mr Sarfo's house.

Man, 32, held over arms

2010-03-16T01:38:00.001-07:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, March 16, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE police have arrested a 32-year-old physically challenged person, Moses Zametsi, for the illegal manufacture and supply of arms to suspected armed robbers.
Two locally made pistols were retrieved from the suspect’s house at Abor in the Volta Region last Friday.
He is currently in custody at the Accra Regional Police Command pending further investigations.
The Accra Regional Crime Officer, Superintendent Frank Adu-Fati, told newsmen in Accra yesterday that the police had information that the suspect was one of the manufacturers and suppliers of locally made pistols to suspected criminals.
He said investigations revealed that the suspect manufactured bangles but often manufactured the pistols on demand.
He said after a series of surveillance, the police swooped on Zametsi’s residence last Friday, March 12, 2010 and retrieved the two pistols.
Upon interrogation, he said, the suspect claimed he was not making enough sales from the sale of the bangles, hence his decision to manufacture the pistols on demand.
Supt Adu-Fati said investigations were still ongoing.

uniBank, Shareworld Travels sign pact

2010-03-15T01:07:00.000-07:00

Page 57: Daily Graphic, March 15, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
SHAREWORLD Travels, a tour company that specialises in pilgrimage trips, has signed an agreement with uniBank Ghana Ltd under which the bank will offer financial support to prospective pilgrims to various religious sites.
Under the agreement, prospective pilgrims will have to make all payments to the bank directly, while the bank also offers soft loans to those who could not meet the cost. They would, however, be expected to pay back between one and 24 months.
The bank would also open a pilgrimage account for those who might want to make savings towards pilgrimage.
The Director-General of Shareworld Travels, Mr Isaac Kuffour, and the Chief Executive Officer of Unibank Ghana Ltd, Mr Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, signed for their respective organisations, while Mrs Tali Tal, the Israeli Co-ordinator for Ghana and representative of the Israeli Embassy in Abuja, witnessed the document.
Mr Kuffour said since ancient times, pilgrimages had been a unique expression of worshipping God by the Israelites.
“Today, pilgrimages are one of the most important elements in our Christian life. When we go on a pilgrimage, we enter into the times and places of our Christian story and remember the events surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Standing where our Lord was baptised, crucified, or buried connects us more intimately to our Christian faith,” he added.
For his part, Mr Owusu-Amoah explained that it was in the interest of the bank to assist in improving Christian pilgrimages so that spiritual obligations could be fulfilled.
“We are already in support and assisting the churches in terms of musical instruments, church buildings and other projects,” he said, adding that “we feel happy to be associated with the pilgrimage programme.”
Mr Owusu–Amoah gave the assurance that money deposited at the bank by pilgrims would not be paid to Shareworld until all arrangements for hotels and visas had been secured for the pilgrims.
He reminded members of the public that the programme had nothing to do with the so-called seekers of greener pastures advised those with such ideas stay away from the programme.
Mrs Tali commended Shareworld and uniBank for their good teamwork and said her office would assist them when the need arose.
Under a schedule of programme for March and October each year, pilgrims to Israel will visit and pray at sites like the Mountain of Temptation, Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, River Jordan, Gethsemane, Golgotha, Upper Room, the tomb of Jesus, Tiberias, Nazareth, Western Wall, Mt. of Ascension, Mt. Olives, Mt. of Beatitudes, Cana, the Pool of Bethesda, Elijah and the Baal, 14 Stations of the Cross, Qumran, Capernaum, and Ela Valley – where David defeated Goliath.

'Give more support to NACOB'

2010-03-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

Page 14: Daily Graphic, March 10, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE United States government has stressed the need for increased funding and logistical support for the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) so as to sustain the fight against drug trafficking.
While acknowledging successes in President J. E. Mills’s first year in office in the fight against drug trafficking, the US government expressed regret that Ghana’s own funding for NACOB and law enforcement agencies remained insufficient and warned that “unless the government remedies this situation and provides adequate resources to combat narcotics trafficking, little progress will be made quickly, and none sustained over the long term”.
These were contained in the 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), a report by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the US State Department issued to the US Congress on March 1, 2010.
It made it clear that progress required strong and sustained political will and continued international assistance for Ghana to confront those difficult issues, giving an assurance that “the U.S. government will press Ghana to increase the resources and capabilities of those fighting illegal narcotics, money laundering and other international crimes”.
The report said the US government’s counter-narcotic and anti-crime goals in Ghana were to strengthen Ghanaian law enforcement capacity generally, to improve interdiction capacities, to enhance NACOB’s capacity, and to reduce Ghana’s role as a transit point for narcotics.
In line with those objectives, it said, in 2009 the U.S. supported Ghana’s counter-narcotic efforts and made plans for additional support in future years, adding that AFRICOM had provided approximately $500,000 toward the construction of an evidence storage and training facility at the CID headquarters in Accra.
When completed, the facility would store drugs collected as evidence in pending court cases.
Additionally, it said, AFRICOM had contracted to construct a security room at the airport to house a State Department-funded body scanner to detect drugs ingested by passengers and other contrabands concealed on or in a person’s body.
It said the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) had also provided more than $333,000 to fund a special prosecutor in the Ghanaian Ministry of Justice, stressing that the prosecutor would work with local prosecutors to improve Ghana’s capacity to investigate and prosecute organised criminal activity and to enforce its laws against narcotics trafficking.

3 Arrested over fake currency

2010-03-10T00:19:00.000-08:00

Page 48: Daily Graphic, March 10, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THREE members of a family, including a father and his son, were yesterday arrested for allegedly dealing in fake dollar notes.
A bag containing some of the fake dollars in $100 bills and dollar-size plain papers were retrieved from the residence of the three at Abossey Okai in Accra.
The suspects, Robert Gokeh Mensah, 37, his father, Robert Kwesi Mensah, 53, and Nyamikeh Mensah, 50, are currently in custody at the Accra Regional Police Command for further investigations.
The three were picked up about 2:30 a.m. yesterday when operatives of the National Security Secretariat had a tip-off that some persons were transacting business at the residence of the three and that the transactions were suspected to border on cocaine.
A source close to the operations team told the Daily Graphic that when the team got to the house, the bag containing the fake dollars was found in one of the rooms.
It said Gokeh claimed the bag had been given to him a month ago by a cousin of his whom he identified only as Kwame.
It said when Gokeh was asked if he knew the contents of the bag, he said he did not know.
The source said Gokeh claimed Kwame had promised to come for the bag when need be but that he had since not come for it, although Kwame visited Gokeh often.

2 Cops arrested for extortion

2010-03-10T00:18:00.002-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, March 9, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A POLICEMAN and an ex-policeman have been arrested for allegedly extorting money from a young man on a frame-up charge of smoking Indian hemp.
Incidentally, the ex-policeman, Godwin Prince Yorke had on July 31, 2008, been dismissed from the Ghana Police Service for extortion.
Yorke and his friend, Lance Corporal Ebenezer Donkor, have been handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for further investigations.
The Director-General of the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS) Bureau, DCOP Timothy Ashley told the Daily Graphic at the weekend that the alleged suspect in the wee-smoking case, petitioned PIPS that L/Cpl Donkor and Yorke wrongfully arrested him on February 17, 2010, for smoking “Bonto”, a locally treated tobacco.
He said Donkor and Yorke arrested the petitioner and subsequently demanded GH¢200 from him to drop the case.
According to him, the petitioner claimed that after persistent harassment, he paid GH¢80 and promised to pay the balance later.
DCOP Ashley said the petitioner then petitioned PIPS following intense pressure from the policeman and the friend to collect the balance of GH¢120.
He said PIPS then gave the petitioner GH¢100 in GH¢5 denomination after their serial numbers had been taken.
He said the petitioner then asked Donkor and Yorke to collect GH¢100 from his wife at Santa Maria.
DCOP Ashley said at about 11:50a.m. on March 3, 2010, Yorke went to the house of the petitioner to collect the GH¢100 where he was arrested.
According to him, on March 4, 2010, Donkor, who is stationed with the Highway Patrol team, was invited for questioning.
He said Donkor allegedly admitted that he and Yorke collected GH¢80 from the complainant after he pleaded for leniency and were to collect a balance of GH¢120 from him later.
DCOP Ashley said Donkor claimed that at the time the petitioner called them to collect the balance, he (Donkor) was on duty and, therefore, asked Yorke to pick it up.

Two soldiers held over robbery

2010-03-10T00:18:00.001-08:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, March 9, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
TWO soldiers from the 48 Field Engineers Regiment have been arrested by the police for attempted robbery.
The Accra Regional Police Command has taken over investigations into the conduct of Lance Corporal Imoro Ibrahim and Sepr Raymond Ntiri who were arrested by some civilians who had gone to the rescue of the person the soldiers wanted to rob of GH¢280.
Their arrest was on the instructions of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lt Gen Blay, when they heard the conduct of the two soldiers.
The Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, told the Daily Graphic that the soldiers allegedly traced their victim from the Ring Road Central branch of the Western Union to the Nima Traffic Light intercession at 2 p.m. last Friday.
She said when the victim’s taxi reached the traffic intercession, the soldiers, who were also in a taxi, allegedly asked their driver to cross the victim’s taxi.
She said the victim was dragged out of his taxi and just when the soldiers were about pushing him into their taxi, the victim raised alarm, attracting passers-by to his rescue.
According to her, the soldiers were overpowered and taken to the Nima Police Station where they claimed the victim was a thief.
DCOP Atinga said when asked what the victim had stolen, the soldiers said it was a passer-by who had told them that he was a thief.
She said the driver of the taxi the soldiers were using, however, told the police that the soldiers had made him to wait at the premises of the Western Union for almost an hour and asked him to trail the victim as soon as he boarded a taxi.

'Prophet' held for allegedly defiling 10yr daughter

2010-03-10T00:17:00.001-08:00

Page 48: Daily Graphic, March 9, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Head Pastor of Jesus Blood Prophetic Ministry at Oblogo, Prophet Nana Kofi Yirenkyi, is in custody for allegedly defiling his 10-year-old daughter.
Although Prophet Yirenkyi, also known as Jesus One Touch, is alleged to have attempted to blame his house help cum watchman for defiling the daughter, the victim is reported to have told some elders of the family and the police that it was his father who had been defiling her.
A medical report from the Akropong Government Hospital has also confirmed that the victim’s hymen had been tampered with.
Prophet Yirenkyi was checked in at the cells of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) at 6 a.m. on March 5, 2010 when he was brought from the Akropong Police Station, where the case had initially been reported on March 1, 2010.
Police sources told newsmen in Accra yesterday that the victim’s mother reported to the Akropong Police on March 1, 2010 that her daughter had been sexually abused.
They said when the victim’s mother initially informed Prophet Yirenkyi about the incident, he claimed it was his house help and indicated that he had beaten and sacked him.
According to the police, the victim’s mother did not take kindly to the incident and reported the incident to some family elders, who interrogated the girl on the issue.
The police said the girl, however, said it was his father, not any other person, and gave vivid details as to what the father did to her on each occasion he defiled her.
The sources said the matter was immediately reported to the Akropong Police, who effected the arrest of Jesus One Touch on March 2, 2010.
The sources said the suspect told the Akropong Police that he (suspect) had ever reported the incident to the SCC Police in Accra.
They explained that since the offence was committed in Accra, the docket was referred to the Accra DOVVSU for further investigations.
The sources said checks at the SCC Police Station did not show that any such case had been reported to the station.
Investigations are ongoing.

Ghana makes more seizures of illicit drugs

2010-03-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

Page 32: Daily Graphic, March 6, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
Ghana made more seizures of cocaine last year as against the same period in 2008. In the first half of 2009, 62 kilogrammes of cocaine were seized by the law enforcement agencies in Ghana as against 33 kilogrammes seized in 2008.
According to the latest statistics released by the US Government, the 2009 half-year cocaine seizure represented 89 per cent more than the seizures in whole of 2008.
In its 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), the US Government noted that Ghana also recorded seizures of 1.7 kilogrammes of cannabis as compared to the 1.4 kg seized in the whole of 2008, representing 22 per cent more. Additionally, more than two kilogrammes of heroin were seized compared to no heroin seizures in 2008.
The report which assessed various countries’ performance in the fight against narcotics, was analysed by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the US State Department and submitted to Congress on March 1, every year.
It attributed the increase in seizures to greater vigilance on the part of the Ghanaian Government but noted that in spite of the progress being made in the country, corruption and a lack of resources continued to impede interdiction efforts.
It explained that while law enforcement authorities arrested low level narcotics traffickers, Ghana has had less success pursuing the so-called drug barons.
The report also acknowledged that on December 16, 2009, three alleged members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), were expelled from Ghana and put into custody of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Accra, who transported the suspects to the United States.
It said the three were being charged with narcotics terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation.
On corruption, it said “corruption is pervasive in Ghana’s law enforcement community, including sections of the police and the NACOB. Despite the regular arrests of suspected narcotics traffickers, Ghana has a low rate of conviction, which many officials believe is likely due to corruption within the judicial system”.
The report cited as an example, the replacement of approximately 12 kilogrammes of narcotics at the Police CID Headquarters in January, 2008, with cornstarch, while the narcotics were stored in the police evidence room and noted that although the former President appointed a commission to investigate the theft, which reported its findings in April, 2008, “the President left office in January, 2009 without making public the commission’s findings”.
The report acknowledged the resolve of President J. E. A. Mills to stop people from using Ghana as a narcotics transit corridor and vigorously fight for the total eradication of hard drugs in the country.
In an interaction with President Mills at the Castle on February 3, 2010, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr Johnnie Carson, applauded Ghana for showing great commitment towards fighting the drug menace and other forms of organised crime in the country.

A look into Ghana's Foreign Policy

2010-03-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

Page 30: Daily Graphic, March 5, 2010.
Article: Albert K. Salia

Foreign policies are generally designed to help protect a country's national interest, security, ideological goals, and economic prosperity. This can occur as a result of peaceful co-operation with other nations, or through aggression, war, and exploitation.
The concepts of free, proud, confident Africa has been dominant in Ghana’s foreign policy objectives since 1957 with Dr Kwame Nkrumah, spearheading that policy as Prime Minister. Since then, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been the sector body responsible for the conduct of Ghana's external relations and now operates spelt in line with Articles 40, 41, 73 and 84 of the 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution.
Usually, creating a foreign policy is the job of the head of government and the foreign minister (or equivalent). In some countries the legislature also has considerable oversight.
It is important to indicate that some critics of Ghana’s foreign policy have described it as “follow-the-crowd type” or a country without any foreign policy at all. That, they explain, is because Ghana’s foreign policy has no coherent and distinctive doctrinal orientation and niche.
They argue that first, the markers of such a foreign policy are government officials who are reactionary rather than proactive; second, officially stated foreign policy goals are usually vague and the foreign minister frequently flip-flops; and third, the Executive rather than well-trained professionals becomes the implementer of the policy.
It has been argued that since Nkrumah administration, Ghana’s foreign policy has been marked by those three tendencies.
Many Ghanaians were unhappy at the frequent trekking of former President J. A. Kufuor during his first term. Foreign policy experts contend that frequent trips of Presidents are typical of states without any well-established foreign policy niche.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as mandated by the Constitution, is to promote and protect the interest of Ghana and those of her citizens abroad and safeguard her security and prosperity through the promotion of friendly and productive relations with all countries. This is meant to enhance Ghana's image abroad and promote economic co-operation between Ghana and other countries through increased Ghana exports, foreign investments, expanding tourism and scientific, technological and cultural links.
The ministry is also responsible for the provision of economic, political and security information and advice to the government, provision of prompt and reliable information to Ghanaian nationals abroad to encourage them to participate in Ghana's economic development. It also plays a positive and creative role in the affairs of the United Nations (UN), Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), The Commonwealth and other international organisations to which Ghana belongs, as well as the integration of member states of the African Union and ECOWAS.
Another important principle of Ghana's foreign policy involves the closest possible co-operation with neighbouring countries with which the people of Ghana share cultural and historical bonds, ties of blood and economics. The results include various bilateral trade and economic agreements and permanent joint commissions involving Ghana and its immediate neighbours, sometimes in the face of latent ideological and political differences and mutual suspicion, as well as numerous reciprocal state visits by high-ranking officials. These measures have contributed significantly to sub-regional co-operation, development, and the reduction in tension.
As an example of Ghana's interest in regional co-operation, the country enthusiastically endorsed the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. This organisation was created specifically to foster inter-regional economic and political co-operation. It has served as a useful vehicle for contacts with neighbouring West African governments and for channelling increased Ghanaian exports to regional markets. Since 1990, ECOWAS has been engaged in a peacekeeping mission in Liberia to which Ghana has contributed a large contingent of troops. Ghana has participated in other international peacekeeping efforts as well, sending soldiers to operations of the United Nations (UN) in Cambodia in 1992-93 and Rwanda in 1993-94.
In fact, Ghana’s foreign policy since independence has been underpinned by these policy objectives with little variations, depending on the regime in power. Ghana's foreign policy since independence has been characterised by a commitment to the principles and ideals of nonalignment and Pan-Africanism as first enunciated by Kwame Nkrumah in the early 1960s.
From all these, one can conclude that Ghana’s foreign relations has been structured around three major goals: Attracting development assistance and investment capital; maintaining friendly ties with neighbours; and playing an active and constructive role in international and regional fora by engaging in peacekeeping and election monitoring missions. These goals reflect pragmatism dictated by poor economic conditions and the need to compete globally for development assistance.
For Nkrumah, nonalignment meant complete independence from the policies and alliances of both the East and the West and support for a world-wide union of so-called non-aligned nations as a counter to both East and West power blocs. Pan-Africanism, by contrast, was a specific African policy that envisioned the liberation of African peoples from Western colonialism and the eventual economic and political unity of the African continent.
For Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia, despite developing strong foreign contacts and arranging various joint projects with foreign governments, his inability to negotiate favourable repayment loan terms became a major setback for his administration. He had been confident that with Ghana having reverted to constitutional rule, he could negotiate with the Western powers to reschedule Ghana's foreign debt repayments, but that was not to be.
While he patiently tried to negotiate with the Western powers Ghana's foreign debt repayments with little result, he became increasingly subjected to attacks over what appeared to be his weak stance towards Ghana's creditors, especially since his clearly pro-Western stance seemed to yield few results.
One issue for which he faced much criticism was his stance towards South Africa. Despite South Africa's adoption of the apartheid system, Dr Busia believed he could open a dialogue with a country seen by most to be a racist regime. Many in Ghana simply could not understand why the black leader of an African country would ever consider that they could negotiate with such a regime, and his attempts to better relations with South Africa were largely met with a negative public response.
When the National Redemption Council (NRC) of Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong took over power on January 13, 1972 from the Busia Progress Party (PP), its nationalist and populist Yentua (we won’t pay) policy to mounting foreign debts of the Busia regime was initially popular but was unsustainable.
While popular with the general public, who understandably did not follow economics, the policy, not long, had its disastrous side becoming apparent.
Acheampong's idea that Ghana should become self-sufficient proved to be a complete disaster, and with few Western trade partners, Ghana continued to suffer economically in ways that made the record of the Busia government look glowing in comparison.
The Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), like most of its predecessors, made serious and consistent attempts at the practical application of these ideals and principles, and its successor, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of President J. J. Rawlings, followed in the PNDC's footsteps. Under President Rawlings’s NDC, Ghana remained committed to the principle of nonalignment in world politics. Ghana was also opposed to interference in the internal affairs of both small and large countries. That was a departure from Nkrumah's foreign policy approach; Nkrumah was frequently accused of subverting African regimes, such as Togo and Cote d'Ivoire, which he considered ideologically conservative.
The NDC government, like the PNDC before it, believed in the principle of self-determination, including the right to political independence and the right of people to pursue their economic and social development free from external interference. Another feature of NDC rule carried over from the PNDC era was faithfulness to what a leading scholar of Africa has called "one of the most successful neo-classical economic reform efforts supported by the IMF and the World Bank".
The broad objectives of Ghana's foreign policy thus included maintaining friendly relations and co-operation with all countries that desire such co-operation, irrespective of ideological considerations, on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. Africa and its liberation and unity are naturally the cornerstones of Ghana's foreign policy.
NDC policy was to adhere faithfully to the OAU(now AU) Charter.
Former President Rawlings’s regional co-operation efforts were rewarded in August 1994 when he became ECOWAS chairman, a post that had eluded him while he was the military dictator heading the PNDC.
He immediately undertook several initiatives to reduce tensions and conflict in West Africa. Notable among them was the Akosombo Accord of September 12 (which year?????????) , designed to end civil war in Liberia.
Under President John Agyekum Kufuor, Ghana’s foreign policy was centred on economic diplomacy, with President Kufuor taking centre stage by undertaking many travels abroad. By his fourth year in office, President Kufuor had become Ghana’s most travelled leader since independence with more than 63 visits to foreign countries.
President Kufuor’s foreign policy also sought to enhance peaceful neighbourliness with the view to removing the tension and suspicion that had characterised relations between Ghana and her neighbours, particularly Togo. The relations among Ghana, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire became excellent as a result of the constant consultations between President Kufuor and his colleagues. Indeed, Ghana was seen as a haven of peace and a trustworthy and sincere neighbour, genuinely committed to peace and progress in the sub-region.
In February 2004, Ghana became the first country to voluntarily subject itself to NEPAD's Peer Review Mechanism, which resulted in the inspection of the government's democratic, human rights and economic objectives by a team of African observers.
The successful handover of power from former President Kufuor to President J. E. A. Mills after an acrimonious election further boosted the image of Ghana in the international community. This peaceful handover in a region where civil strife had characterised some countries saw the first black American President, President Barack Obama, visiting Ghana between July 10-11, 2009, to salute Ghanaians for their democratic credentials, as well as Ghana’s contribution to world peace and conflict resolution. Since then, Ghana has and continues to receive rare positive reviews in the comity of nations.
Foreign Minister Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, at a forum with members of the Diplomatic Corps, made it clear that there would not be a shift in Ghana’s foreign policy objectives.
He said promoting and enhancing bilateral and multilateral co-operation would continue to be key pillars in the country's foreign policy as President Mills’s government was committed to providing an attractive and conducive environment for the smooth functioning of all diplomatic missions and consulates.
The Mills’s government had been seen to be promoting good neighbourliness and placing high premium on relations with ECOWAS and African states while furthering the desire to promote friendly relations with all other countries, especially development partners.
Economic diplomacy, which requires greater attention to the promotion of trade, investment and tourism, facilitation of investment flows into Ghana, particularly towards key sectors such as energy, agriculture and agro-processing, ICT, infrastructural development and the hospitality industry, has been evident.
Alhaji Mumuni said the pursuit of peace and security would continue to be given high priority in the conduct of Ghana's foreign policy as they were essential for growth and prosperity and noted that it was his conviction that Ghana's internal peace, security and development remained inseparable from that of the sub-region.
The leadership positions occupied by Ghanaian nationals in various multilateral institutions also enhance the country’s profile in the comity of nations. Mr Kofi Annan and Dr K. Y. Amoako are the respective immediate past heads of the United Nations and the Economic Commission for Africa while Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, until recently, President of the ECOWAS Commission, is now heading the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) Secretariat in Brussels, Belgium.
Indeed, the country takes credit for the work of these and other nationals in the field of international diplomacy and Ghana often supports their work by launching mediation sessions to bring peace to war-torn countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Cote d’Ivoire and also by hosting conferences that enhance the prospects for democracy and development in Africa.
Despite its limited resources, Ghana has been an active participant in democracy promotion abroad. It has mediated disputes in other countries, the most recent being the one the Kofi Annan brokered in Kenya; provided technical assistance; and participated in election monitoring and peacekeeping. Ghanaian leaders have participated in international fora and been vocal by publicly condemning actions that subvert the democratic process.
Ghana has always being cognisant of its weak capacity for unilateral action in the international arena and hence augments its power by developing close ties (usually at the presidential level) with more powerful states.
Ghana’s limited capacity for unilateral action also has led it to pursue many foreign policy activities through multilateral channels such as the United Nations, the African Union (AU), and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS). Membership of these organisations provides Ghana with a platform for protecting some of its interests, as well as to establish itself as a leader on several issues of concern to the African continent. For example, through the UN and ECOWAS, Ghana has been able to engage in numerous peacekeeping missions, which earns it international respect as a partner for global stability and a moral leader in African affairs.
It is important to also recognise that Ghana’s involvement in international peacekeeping functions is sometimes also driven more by a desire to raise funds for its military than peace and security concerns. Such pragmatism allows Ghana to influence events in neighbouring African countries, sometimes to an extent that belies her small size and resources.
Ghana’s other foreign relations “assets” include its status as a “role model” for the prominent role several Ghanaian nationals play in global affairs. Ghana’s “role model” status arises out of the country’s position as the first African state south of the Sahara to gain independence from colonial rule and the dynamic leadership of its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, in the Pan-Africanist movement.
The decision to implement World Bank-sponsored economic reform programmes two decades ago and recent democratic reforms have also reinforced the “role model” image and somewhat established Ghana as a leader of the movement for political change and rejuvenation of the African continent.
The change in government from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to the then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and back to the NDC has been seen as symbolic lesson for other African leaders.
Clearly, the mark of Ghana’s foreign policy has been that when strategic interests are at stake, Ghana’s leaders have chosen co-operation and friendship over criticism.

Police kill notorious criminal in gun battle

2010-03-02T02:20:00.002-08:00

Page 3: Daily Graphic, March 2, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
ONE of the most wanted criminals in the country, John Kofi Fiagbedzi, alias Spider, was yesterday killed in a gun battle with the police when he led an attack on the residence of Ghana’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Baba Kamara.
Spider had been on the police wanted list since 2006 after he had escaped from the Police Hospital where he was receiving treatment for wounds he received from a US Marine in December that year.
The police then placed a GH¢4,000 bounty each on Spider and his accomplice, Mathias Kwesi Tsegah, who are said to have committed a series of robberies in Accra, Kumasi, Ho and other parts of the country.
Two foreign pistols, 26 rounds of ammunition, a car jerk, a screw driver and two mobile phones were retrieved from Spider after he had been shot. Some gold bracelets belonging to Mr Kamara’s wife were also found on Spider.
Tsegah is suspected to have escaped with GH¢6,680 which they had taken from Mr Kamara during the nearly 45- minute exercise after tying their victims.
Spider, Tsegah and a third suspect, identified as Aaron, who is currently in custody, were alleged to have robbed a Ghanaian woman of $64,000 on the GIMPA road in 2008, while Spider single-handedly robbed a foreigner of his Pathfinder vehicle on the Spintex Road in 2008.
The police also mentioned the robbery of a forex bureau near the St John’s Grammar School in early 2009 and another robbery on December 7, 2009, during which a RAV4 vehicle was snatched from its owner. The vehicle was later retrieved from Ho during the Yam Festival there.
Briefing newsmen in Accra yesterday, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, who was assisted by her deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on Monday, the two armed young men entered Mr Kamara’s house.
She said someone in one of the rooms sent a distress call to a soldier friend, who in turn called the Police Information Room.
According to her, when the police got to the house, a policeman and a soldier had already laid ambush in the house upon hearing the distress calls on their walkie-talkie.
DCOP Atinga said at the time of the robbery, lights in the house had been put out and it was unclear whether it was the robbers who had done that.
She said when the victims pleaded with the robbers to leave, since they expected a high profile visitor, the attackers declined to leave.
She said it was after a while that the two assailants decided to leave and, typical of Spider’s escapades, he started firing from his two pistols with the view to scaring away neighbours.
DCOP Atinga said as soon as the robbers came out of the house, Spider assisted Mathias to jump out of the house amidst the firing.
She said Spider was unlucky, as he was hit by the police response. She was certain that Mathias could also have been hit by a bullet, and, therefore, appealed to members of the public, especially health facilities, to report anyone with bullet wounds to the nearest police station.
On the December 21, 2006 incident, DCOP Atinga said Spider had been stabbed at Tesano by a US Marine who was on holidays in Ghana.
She said Spider was remanded in prison custody in Nsawam after he had successfully been operated upon by surgeons at the Police Hospital.
She said Spider’s condition deteriorated six months after and he was brought back to the Police Hospital for treatment.
She said although Spider was on police guard, he managed to escape from the hospital, which resulted in the loss of job by the policeman guarding him.
She said the Police Administration subsequently put a GH¢2,000 bounty on him, while one of his foreign victims also added GH¢2,000 to it.

Starmer here to assist SFO

2010-03-02T02:20:00.001-08:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, March 2, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales, Mr Keir Starmer, is in the country to hold discussions with stakeholders in Ghana’s criminal justice system with the view to strengthening relations between Ghana and the United Kingdom.
The discussions are centred on offering training to and equipping some of Ghana’s crime fighting agencies, particularly the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which is currently being re-positioned as the Economic and Organised Crime Agency with an expanded mandate to deal with money laundering, cyber fraud, among others.
At a meeting with the leadership of the SFO, Mr Starmer pledged the commitment of the UK to assist Ghana with the requisite training for staff of the SFO and provide logistics for the organisation.
He noted, for instance, that while some SFO staff were already receiving training, the stay of the Head of Governance and Justice at the British High Commission, Mr Roger Coventry, had been extended from nine to 19 months.
He said international collaboration held the key to fighting organised crime, hence the UK’s support to Ghana to help it contribute efficiently and effectively to dealing with the menace.
Mr Starmer said organised crime was a menace to the world and that it was only through joint collaborations by states that a major headway could be made.
He expressed satisfaction with the widening of the remit of the SFO and pledged continuous support to the new agency when it became operational.
The Board Chairman of the SFO, Mr Justice Amonoo Monney, expressed appreciation to the UK government for the support so far and explained that with the expansion of the mandate of the SFO, personnel of the agency would require more expert training to enable them to confront the challenges of fighting organised crime.
The Executive Director of the SFO, Mr Biadela Mortey Akpadzi, said it looked forward to recruiting more personnel to enable it to deal with its expanded mandate.
He said the SFO would also be prosecuting on the authority of the Attorney-General, hence the need to ensure that staff were adequately trained in investigations, monitoring and prosecutions.

Police apologise to Finatrade

2010-02-25T23:30:00.001-08:00

Page 25: Daily Graphic, February 25, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Administration has rendered an unqualified apology to the Finatrade Group of Companies and its subsidiary, Market Direct Company, for any embarrassment caused them when some officials of the company were arrested for allegedly importing 15 kilogrammes of cocaine into the country without lawful authority in December 2006.
It acknowledged that the officials were falsely accused of indulging in the unlawful importation of narcotic drugs through the Tema Port on December 20, 2006.
“The Ghana Police Service hereby makes an unqualified retraction of the false accusations made against the said group of companies, their directors and employees,” the Director of Public Affairs of the Police Service, DSP Kwesi Ofori, stated in an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday.
The Managing Director of Market Direct Ltd, Mr Michael Ayache, and two clearing agents of the company, Isaac Quansah and Mohammed Salami, were arrested on December 20, 2006 on a charge of importing 15 kilogrammes of cocaine into the country .
The three spent the Christmas and New Year holidays behind bars till they were discharged by an Accra circuit court on January 12, 2007 after the prosecutor had withdrawn the charge of criminal offence against them.
DSP Ofori explained that the publicity of the false accusation had not been intended to harm or tarnish the image or reputation of the company.
He said the Police Administration had conceded the embarrassing situation in which it placed the management of Finatrade with the publication after their arrest and, “therefore, retract the said publication”.
According to him, “the service further wishes to state that any harm that the said false accusation might have done to the image and reputation of the Finatrade Group of Companies, their directors and employees is deeply regretted”.
DSP Ofori explained that the publicity associated with the arrest of the directors had been an indispensable aspect of police and civilian partnership through which the police received useful information in the performance of their statutory duties fighting drug-related crime.

US, Ghana sign deal * To train Ghanaians in prosecution of organised crime

2010-02-23T23:26:00.001-08:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, February 24. 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
GHANA has secured the services of a US prosecutor to train Ghanaian prosecutors in the prosecution of organised and sophisticated crime cases in the country.
The US prosecutor, who is expected to spend six to nine months in the country, will work with Ghanaian judicial officials to investigate organised crime cases associated with narcotics and money laundering.
While in the country, the US prosecutor will also assist investigators to deal with leaders of drug trafficking organisations operating in Ghana and help secure their conviction.
At the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to seal the deal between Ghana and the United States of America in Accra yesterday, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, conceded that the state had not been successful in the prosecution of such serious and sophisticated crimes due to the lack of capacity of prosecutors to appreciate the enormity of the crimes.
She said it was in view of such challenges that the government appreciated the gesture of the US Government to support Ghanaian prosecutors and investigators in dealing with such crimes.
She said it was in line with the government’s commitment to fighting sophisticated crimes that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was to be migrated to an Economic and Organised Crime Agency.
Mrs Mould-Iddrisu said the bill to facilitate the migration was expected to be passed by the current session of Parliament and would expand the responsibilities of the SFO under the Economic and Organised Crime Agency.
She said the Economic and Organised Crime Agency, when established, would monitor, investigate and, on the authority of the Attorney-General, prosecute offences that involved serious financial or economic loss to the country, money laundering, human trafficking, and cyber crimes, computer-related fraud.
It would also be empowered to recover the proceeds of crime and to provide for related matters.
She announced that the board of Ghana’s Financial Intelligence Centre would also be inaugurated soon, while the Narcotics Control Board was also being refitted to harmonise the work of all the agencies to ensure co-operation and collaboration in their work.
She said joint teams would also be instituted to facilitate investigations so that all facets of cases were dealt with.
Mrs Mould-Iddrisu, therefore, appealed to other donor agencies to support the Attorney-General’s Department in capacity building programmes to enable state prosecutors to achieve success.
Responding to concerns about low remuneration and high turnover of prosecutors, the Minister said a committee was almost through with a package which would keep personnel at post.
The US Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Donald Teitelbaum, who signed the MoU on behalf of the US Government, said the co-operation between the US and Ghana to stem the flow of illegal drugs would result in a safer and more secure Ghana.
He said both the US and Ghana were vigorously fighting against narcotic traffickers who were using Ghana as a transit corridor.
He noted that Ghana and the US shared a number of transnational problems and, therefore, required transnational solutions so that the two countries and the rest of the world would benefit.

Social commentators urged to be guided by section 208 of Criminal Act

2010-02-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

Page 30: Daily Graphic, February 24, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Administration has asked the general public, particularly those who use public platforms to comment on national issues, to be guided by the existence of Section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act.
It said mindful of the existence of such a law, it was wrong for Ghanaians, who collectively enacted it, to launch unwarranted and unguarded attacks on the police whose mandate was only to ensure that the law was adhered to.
Reacting to public criticisms of the involvement of the police in the arrest and trial of a radio panellist in Accra, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Samuel Kwesi Ofori, the Director of Police Public Affairs, said comments by a section of the public in the aftermath of the event left much to be desired.
The panellist, Nana Darkwa Baafi, was arrested as a result of a comment he allegedly made to the effect that the burning of the residence of former President J. J. Rawlings was done by the former President himself.
DSP Ofori wondered what would have happened if the police had not responded to the calls, saying it would have resulted in the lynching of the suspect and the destruction of property on the premises of the radio station.
He explained that in line with their mandate to provide security and ensure law and order, policemen were detailed to the premises of Top Radio to restore calm upon hearing that people were massing up there.
He said that led to the arrest of the suspect, who was processed and charged with the offence of “Publication of false news with intent to cause fear and alarm to the public” under Section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act.
DSP Ofori said the suspect was subsequently put before court and, in the wisdom of the court, it remanded him to re-appear on March 3, 2010.
“It is, therefore, unfortunate the way some politicians, social commentators, journalists and panellists on radio programmes are making all sorts of unsavoury comments about the police,” he said.
He entreated the public to appreciate the due processes involved, especially when someone had been taken to the court, and urged it to accept that as part of the due process of the law and not subject the police to condemnation.
He explained that the suspect had not been overly detained but was arraigned before a court of competent jurisdiction.
DSP Ofori said the court, in its wisdom, decided to remand the suspect, a process which everyone must appreciate.
He said since the matter was before court, it was important that those who preached democracy and the rule of law allowed the law to be tested in court and not try to circumvent the institutions established for that purpose.
“Forcing the police to take it out of court is inappropriate. The court should decide whether the charges are appropriate,” he stated.
According to him, contemporary policing thrived on law and made it clear that the Ghana Police Service was in tune with the democratic aspirations of the country and its people.
He said the police would, therefore, not kow-tow to political interests or be an appendage of any political party but would remain professional in the discharge of their work.
He gave the assurance that the police would not renege on their responsibility but continue to perform their constitutionally mandated duty without fear or favour.
DSP Ofori noted that if media organisations, particularly the electronic media, did not manage their phone-in programmes and discussion segments, “it will be the media who will be a threat to democracy and not the police”.

Bogus wedding gang 'lynch pin' jailed in UK

2010-02-21T23:28:00.001-08:00

Page 46: Daily Graphic, February 22, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A 29-YEAR-OLD London-based Ghanaian has been jailed six years by the Croydon Crown Court for breaches to British immigration control, deception and ID Cards Act offences.
Described by the UK Border Agency as the “lynch pin” of a London bogus marriage ring, the convict, Victor Kugbeadzor of Brixton, is also to be deported after serving his sentence.
His conviction followed a two-year investigation by officers from the UK Border Agency.
An Assistant Director of the UK Border Agency’s Criminal and Financial Investigations Directorate, Mr Malcolm Bragg, told the Daily Graphic that Kugbeadzor was behind the organisation of at least six bogus weddings of British citizens to Ghanaian nationals, including his own, to enable the Ghanaians to obtain permission to stay in the UK.
He said Kugbeadzor married 28-year-old Kelly Bellotti at Barking Registry Office in October 2007 in order to get permission to stay in the UK.
“The marriage was a sham, with Bellotti receiving £2,000 to undertake the marriage,” he said.
Mr Bragg indicated that Bellotti was subsequently arrested in November 2008 and jailed in October 2009 along with three other British citizens who had also been involved in marriages organised by Kugbeadzor.
He said investigations led officers from the UK Border Agency’s Criminal and Financial Investigation (CFI) Unit to Devon, where Kugbeadzor was living under an assumed name.
He said Kugbeadzor was arrested in November 2009, and was jailed on February 11, 2010, after he pleaded guilty to a series of charges, including conspiracy to breach immigration control, deception and ID Cards Act offences, at Croydon Crown Court.
“This was a sophisticated and organised plot, and the sentence handed down in this case shows how seriously UKBA and the courts take these kinds of attempts to circumvent the UK’s immigration rules,” Mr Bragg said.
He said the British authorities were “determined to track down and stop this kind of abuse, and we hope today’s sentences send out a message that anyone who tries to enter into or organise a sham marriage faces arrest, prosecution, and a long time in prison”.
According to Mr Bragg, the conviction of Victor Kugbeadzor meant that nine people had now been jailed for their parts in the sham marriage ring, with sentences totalling seventeen-and-a-half years, saying that three Ghanaian nationals who benefited from the scam had already been deported.
The other persons convicted since 2008 in respect of the marriage scams are Kwabena Boadu, Frank Adjei and Henrieeta Adjei, all Ghanaian nationals, who have been deported after serving their jail terms.
The British accomplices are Lisa Curtis, Cheryl Collier, Kelley Belloti, Terry Hadley and Jay Davies.
They were each sentenced to 18 months.
Mr Bragg said the investigation into the ring, codenamed “Operation Probole”, lasted for more than two years and begun after immigration officials raised concerns about the marriage of British citizen Lisa Curtis to Ghanaian Kwabena Boadu.
He said both were arrested and documentation found at Ms Curtis’s home linked her to other suspected marriages.
“The UK continues to welcome genuine and law-abiding travellers. UKBA in Ghana, operating from within the British High Commission, works closely with local law enforcement agencies to bear down on fraudulent applications. As a result, the British High Commission’s visa issue rate has climbed from 50 per cent to 65 per cent,” he added.

2010-02-18T23:42:00.000-08:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, February 19, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A COLLABORATION between Ghana and her foreign partners has resulted in the busting of a Ghanaian-led international cocaine trafficking syndicate.
The Switzerland-based syndicate, led by 60-year-old Ghanaian woman, Beatrice Agama, alias Mama, and also known as Gubelmann Siddiqui, included Cynthia Tetteh, alias Cynthia Tschudin, 55, Beatrice Annor Owusu, alias Maku, 35, Samuel Darko, alias Sammy, 34, all Ghanaians and Timothy Chinedu Bethel Obasi, 45, a Nigerian and three others suspected to be Ecuadorians. They were mentioned as Rokas Vizbaras, Aurimas Bobinas and Lukas Venckus.
While Beatrice Agama, Samuel Darko and Beatrice Owusu are currently in custody in Switzerland, Cynthia Tetteh and Timothy Obasi are in custody in Ecuador.
Interestingly, Cynthia Tetteh was discharged by the High Court in Accra for her alleged mental imbalance after she was arrested on January 3, 2009, for concealing cocaine in her vagina in an attempt to smuggle the drugs to Switzerland.
Security sources described Madam Agama as the organiser, financier and chief advisor to members of the syndicate.
The sources said Cynthia was associated with Beatrice Owusu, Beatrice Gubelmann and Samuel Darko.
They said Cynthia travelled to Ecuador in September 2009 to establish liaison with Bethel Obasi.
According to the sources, Beatrice Owusu and Samuel Darko had sent Lithuanian couriers to Ecuador with Cynthia supervising the supply sent by Bethel Obasi.
They said Beatrice Owusu and Samuel Darko had both allegedly confessed to transporting drugs.
When contacted, the head of Operations of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), Mr Dickson Akatsa, confirmed the arrests to the Daily Graphic.
He said after Cynthia was discharged by the court in Accra, NACOB sent her profile to foreign partners to put her on the watchlist.
According to him, it was through the watchlist that Cynthia came to security notice in September 2009, which made NACOB’s international partners to closely monitor her movements.
Mr Akatsa said subsequent investigations led to the uncovering of other members of the syndicate.
Meanwhile, he said, 14 drug couriers were convicted to various terms of imprisonment, ranging from 10 years to 30 years, between January 1 and February 12, 2010.

Importers not happy with influx of Ivorian rice

2010-02-17T23:35:00.000-08:00

Page 24: Daily Graphic, February 18, 2010.Story: Albert K. Salia
KEY rice importers have expressed concern about the large influx of Ivorian rice brands into the country through the borders.
The concerns had been aggravated by the fact that those bringing in the rice through the borders do not pay duties and other related taxes as compared to those using the Tema port.
According to the importers, the situation had resulted in wide price differences which made those paying 20 per cent duties and 12.5 per cent VAT, 2.5 per cent NHIL and 2.4 per cent other taxes to be losing out.
They noted that the massive inflow of the illicit rice on the markets, particularly in the Central, Western, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and lately the Greater Accra regions, was seen as a major threat to the government’s policy of encouraging the consumption of home grown rice as the smuggled rice from Cote d’Ivoire was far cheaper.
“Also the quantum of revenue lost by the government to the smugglers is huge. The people involved in this illegal border trade allegedly pay very nominal amounts at borders such as Kwame Siekrom, Gonokrom and Kofi Badukrom to bring rice into Ghana,” they alleged.
“It is estimated that 100,000 metric tonnes of rice in one kilogramme, five kilogrammes, 25 kilogrammes and 50 kilogrammes, is packaged in sacks and smuggled into the country. There is a major revenue loss to the government on this account,” they indicated.
According to the players, they were not against competition but there should be a level playing field for all of them for consumers to make their preferred choice.
They said if nothing was done within the next three to four months, there would be a major crisis as not only could the smugglers not meet the national requirements but also the genuine businesses could not survive due to continuously reducing sales.
That, they contended, could also result in loss of jobs.
They expressed hope that the government would take some concrete steps on priority basis to deal with this menace.

Pentecost's new dress code causes stir

2010-02-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, February 17, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE fundamental changes announced by the Church of Pentecost have irritated some conservatives in the church and earned applause from others.
One of the key changes announced in a communiqué by the apostles, prophets and evangelists of the church is the one that allows female members, as well as visitors, to dress freely but decently and modestly to church.
The communiqué, which was issued at the end of the church’s annual prayer meeting, also granted women the option of not covering their hair and opened its services to dreadlocks Rastafarians and women in trousers.
It explained that there was no Biblical foundation for the use of head covering, which it said had been a source of embarrassment to female visitors as a requirement for salvation and should, therefore, not be imposed on church members or visitors.
Among those who have objected to the reforms is the Presiding Elder of the Bethel Assembly of the Church of Pentecost at Nii Boi Town, Elder Amos Amankwah.
He said the church had always depended on the direction of the Holy Spirit over such issues after a year-long prayer session.
“I will advise it to take its time, since allowing such practices will have dire consequences for the church,” he said.
A member of the church, Mr Ebenezer Boadi, also disagreed with the leaders on the new directives, saying they were not the best and very “un-pentecostal”.
He said it was that Church of Pentecost culture which differentiated members of the church from those of other churches and entreated the leadership to reconsider that position.
Mr Boadi said the infiltration of immoral practices into the church was even affecting the choice of its leaders and warned that if it was not checked, “it will destroy our church”.
He said it was now common practice to appoint persons as elders of the church because of their wealth when such persons did not know much about the church, its teachings and the Bible.
According to him, it was not the dropping of head covers or trousers that would entice new members into the church.
Another member, Mrs Comfort Baidoo, however, welcomed the new directives, saying that “it is better late than never”.
She commended the leadership of the church for that bold move and indicated that it was the beginning of a great reformation in the church.
In their communiqué, the leaders said the decision to abolish some of the age-long church traditions was to retain the church’s growing youth and adult membership, as well as open its doors to people of different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds to have unhindered access to the total Gospel in its churches world-wide, especially when the practice defied theological and hermeneutic agreement.
It also directed that female visitors in decent trousers, as well as Rastafarians or persons in dreadlocks, be accepted in fellowship in the spirit of Christian love, while couples or families desiring to sit together at church be allowed to sit under the feet of Jesus to learn.
The communiqué, which was signed by its Chairman, Apostle Dr Opoku Onyinah, said after fully examining 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 on the issue of women head covering, it became obvious that what Paul wanted to put across was not clear.
It said a critical examination of the historical records, such as circulars of successive chairmen of the church from 1953 to 2007, revealed that the forefathers of the church, particularly the Founder, Rev James McKeown, did not discourage or encourage the covering of the head by women but that he had rather admonished the church, through a circular of August 7, 1967, that the leaders should not meddle in the private affairs of church members by prescribing dress codes for them and taught that church members dress decently and modestly.
It noted that the practice of head covering might have crept into the church’s practices from the fact that it was traditionally required of women in Ghana to cover their head before speaking to their kings and that might have led foundational women of the church to insist on appearing before the Lord, the King of kings, with their head covered.

Police round up criminal gangs

2010-02-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

Page 31: Daily Graphic, February 16, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE police at the weekend busted three suspected criminal gangs in various parts of the country.
Eight suspects were rounded up in the exercise at Kpando in the Volta Region and Haatso and Kotobabi in Accra.
Three suspects were arrested in Kpando last Friday for allegedly dealing in the illegal manufacture of pistols and supplying them to armed robbers, while three others were arrested at the Tentacles Hotel in Accra where they had gone to rob someone of a laptop.
Two others were arrested for allegedly attempting to snatch a taxi from its driver at Haatso.
A number of items, including locally made pistols, toy pistols, kitchen knives, machetes, mobile phones and two laptops, were retrieved from the suspects after their arrest.
Those arrested in the Kpando exercise were Daniel Asamany, 40, the manufacturer, and his two apprentices, Francis Abotsi, 25, and Victor Asuo, 34, while those arrested in the attempted hotel robbery were Isaac Arthur, 23; Frederick Harrison, 22, and Francis Osei Appiah, 20.
The others — Abraham Sarpong, 24, and Kwabena Fosu, 21 — were arrested in the attempted car-snatching incident at Haatso.
Briefing newsmen in Accra yesterday on the three exercises, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, assisted by her deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, said Isaac, Frederick and Francis, who robbed their victim of his laptop, had gone to the hotel about 2 a.m. on Sunday, February 14, 2010 with two toy pistols, kitchen knives, ropes and body spray to attack their victim.
She said at the time of the incident, there was a programme taking place at the hotel and, unknown to the suspects, the police had monitored their movements and discussions when they got to the hotel.
According to her, when the suspects wanted to flee after taking the laptop from their victim, the police fired warning shots, which made Isaac to stop.
DCOP Atinga said Francis then attempted to jump over the wall of the hotel but he was threatened that he would be shot at if he dared.
She said the three suspects immediately lay down and that facilitated their arrest.
With regard to the car-snatching incident, DCOP Atinga said the suspects, Fosu and Sarpong, hid two machetes on their body before hiring the taxi, with registration number GT 3938-09, from Agbogba to Haatso.
She said some minutes away from where they hired the taxi, the suspects came across a police/military checkpoint where they were asked to alight for a search on them.
DCOP Atinga said it was during the search that the machetes were retrieved from the suspects, adding that a third suspect, who was identified by the suspects only as Boamah, managed to escape.
She appealed to taxi drivers to be careful with the persons who hired them in the night, especially when the prospective hirers made mouth-watering offers.
Touching on the illegal gun manufacturers, ACP Yohuno said it had come to the notice of the police that the illegal gun manufacturers were fuelling robbery cases in the country.
He said the police had, accordingly, extended their fight against robbery to gun manufacturers, noting that it was in one of such exercises that the police had a tip off about the activities of Asamany and his apprentices.
ACP Yohuno said the three were arrested after they had been caught offering four pistols for sale at GH¢300 each.
He said Asamany allegedly admitted manufacturing the guns after his arrest.

’Separate Survey Dept from National Lands Commission’

2010-02-14T23:21:00.000-08:00

Page 46: Daily Graphic, February 15, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE staff of the Survey Department have petitioned the President to separate the department from the new National Lands Commission, which is an amalgamation of four agencies.
They were of the view that if the department was not removed from the merger, its main mandate of surveying and mapping would be killed under the current Lands Commission.
In the petition, the workers said they envisaged “a lack of direction and transparency at the policy level with respect to survey and mapping in the country and that will be detrimental to the overall development of the nation as a whole”.
They contended that several memoranda sent to Parliament prior to the enactment of Act 767 went unheeded.
According to them, their fears were confirmed when appointments to the three top positions of the new Lands Commissions went to land economists and not a single land surveyor.
“Your Excellency, permit us to inform you that the above appointees are all land economists from the old lands commission whose training and background are the same as against the land surveyor from Survey Department whose training and job functions are entirely different in nature,” they noted.
Under Act 767, four land sector agencies — the Survey Department, Lands Commission, Land Valuation Board and the Land Title Registry — were merged into one National Lands Commission as part of efforts to improve land administration in the country.
According to the workers, preparation of site plans was not the core duties of the department, stressing that “the very fibre of development in every nation is hinged on a vibrant survey and mapping component”.
They contended that the role of the surveyor was so significant that the Surveyor-General in Nigeria was of Cabinet status.
According to them, the old Lands Commission, Land Valuation Board, Land Title Registry and Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands, had a common ancestry in the former Lands Department, which was itself created out of the Survey Department during the colonial period.
They said there was a common link between all the other land sector agencies while the “Survey Department by virtue of its mandate and functions virtually has very little in common with all the other land sector agencies”.
“If the Survey Department is put under the new Lands Commission, whose core functions are mainly on land administration, the department stands the risk of being inactive, since the other functions other than the preparation of cadastral plans could be relegated to the background.
“The Survey Department should remain as the National Mapping Organisation and should remain autonomous,” they demanded.
They said the membership of the Lands Commission as it existed now did not include people with the scientific and technical knowledge and competence to formulate policy and give directions in the performance of the functions of the Survey Department both at the national and regional levels.

Foreign Ministry to issue bio-passports

2010-02-10T23:31:00.000-08:00

Page 49: Daily Graphic, February 11, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Passport Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration is to take full control of the issuance of biometric passports to Ghanaians.
While effecting the migration from manual passports to the use of biometric ones, however, the Passport Office may use the services of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) of the Interior Ministry only if need be.
This follows the resolution of the impasse between the Passport Office and the GIS at a meeting with a Deputy Chief of Staff, Ms Valerie Sawyerr, at the Castle, Osu, yesterday.
After the amicable resolution of the issue, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, is reported to have stated that the March 23, 2010 date to commence the exercise would certainly be complied with.
He was reported to have stated in response to the demands of the GIS to take control of the issuance of the biometric passports that that could only be if the law was amended.
Sources at the meeting told the Daily Graphic that the meeting turned out to be a briefing session for Alhaji Mumuni, who further stated that the status quo in the issuance of passports was inconsistent with the new system.
Alhaji Mumuni, the sources indicated, explained that the essence of technology was to dispense with labour intensive activities and it was the fact of being declared redundant in the new system that had generated “Much ado about nothing”.
Subsequently, the Passport Office has allocated the ground floor of the former Foreign Affairs Ministry which was gutted by fire as the Passport Application Centre for Accra.
Alhaji Mumuni was reported to have said that the company doing the installation would act with dispatch to install the equipment and move quickly to install equipment at the other centres in the country.
The sources said the minister was emphatic that the new system was to achieve efficiency and value for money for Ghanaians.
They said the Deputy Director of the GIS, Mr Michael Gyamfi, led a team of officials to represent the GIS at the meeting.
The Daily Graphic reported in its February 9, 2010 edition that the GIS and the Passport Office were embroiled in a dispute over which of the two institutions had the mandate to issue biometric passports in the country, a development which threatened to delay Ghana’s migration from manual passports to the use of biometric ones by April this year.
Spokespersons for both the GIS and the Passport Office told the Daily Graphic that the new date of March 23, 2010 which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had set for the migration to be effected would not materialise unless the impasse had been amicably resolved.
Part of the revenue to be generated from the exercise is to be retained by the issuing authority as an internally generated fund and some sources have pointed to that incentive as one of the reasons why both the GIS and the Passport Office are so embroiled.
And with no clear position on who was in charge, the two institutions had acquired new offices in Kumasi to be used as the Passport Application Centre, as they had done in Accra.

Permanent posting cause of corruption in MTTU

2010-02-10T23:30:00.000-08:00

Page 44: Daily Graphic, February 11, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A FORMER National Security Co-ordinator, Mr Kofi Bentum Quantson, has noted that corruption has become endemic at the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service because of the practice of permanent posting to the unit.
“Obviously, the place is seen as a lucrative posting and it is common knowledge that some policemen and women actively lobby their way to get there in order to make money for themselves and those who posted them to the unit,” he said.
Commenting on the recent arrest of some officials of the Accra Central MTTU for extorting money from drivers, Mr Quantson, who is also a retired Commissioner of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), said posting to the MTTU on a permanent basis should be stopped and discouraged.
He said there had been instances when personnel were posted to the MTTU as constables or corporals and retired as chief superintendents or higher.
He said police personnel should be posted there for a specified period and then sent out to perform other police duties as part of a fundamental review of the unit to ensure discipline and stem the tide of corruption there.
“If this is done progressively, it can minimise this open tendency to extort money on the roads,” he noted.
Mr Quantson expressed regret that previous Police Administrations had found it extremely difficult to undertake any reforms at the MTTU.
He, therefore, called on the current Inspector-General of Police, Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, to muster courage and the will to effect the needed reforms at the MTTU countrywide.
“The MTTU should not be a permanent duty post for any police officer or for all police officers,” he added.
Mr Quantson, who is also a former Director of the Bureau of National Investigations, said the immediate response of the IGP to the complaint typified that sort of healthy and productive bonding between the people and the police “and this is highly commendable”.
According to him, the public saw something going wrong and they reacted responsibly by reporting to the police, noting that the police also responded promptly in arresting those involved in the criminal act.
“This is something that should be encouraged because it is the only way to ensure not only police accountability but also public responsibility,” he stated.
Mr Quantson noted that that was not the first time that such a situation had arisen, pointing out that “there have been instances in the last 25 years or more when action has been taken against rogue policemen for always disgracing the service by collecting these bribes”.
He said what happened was not an isolated case, as there had been complaints of extortion on roads and highways all over the country.
Mr Quaye ordered the arrest of four officials of the Accra Central MTTU on January 27, 2010 for allegedly extorting money from motorists around the Achimota Overhead Bridge.
An amount of GH¢196 was retrieved from them when they were searched on the spot by the arresting team from the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS) Bureau.
Those arrested were Inspector Joseph Karikari, Sergeant Anthony Nyarko and Lance Corporals George Rockson and Daniel Yemoh.

Accra Police Command makes moves to decongest cells

2010-02-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

Page 48: Daily Graphic, February 10, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A CELLS audit has begun at the Accra Regional Police Command, with a view to decongesting cells in the metropolis following the death of two suspects at the Ashaiman Police Station.
The Regional Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, and her deputy, ACP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, are leading the exercise, which also includes the region’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
The two inmates who died at the Ashaiman Police cells on Monday were said to have died from suffocation and excessive heat in the cells.
Four others, who collapsed in the cell as a result of the heat and, therefore, became unconscious, were admitted at the Tema General Hospital.
The cells at the Accra Central Police Station are meant for 30 suspects but more than that number are often held there due to the presence of remand prisoners.
ACP Yohuno told the Daily Graphic that the team was looking at those involved in minor cases and could be granted bail.
He said those who had been remanded in prison custody would also be sent to the appropriate prisons.
According to him, the team was also looking at those who had not been taken to court for a long time, adding, “We want to find out why they had not been sent to court.”
ACP Yohuno said the exercise had started at the Accra Central cells and would continue from the Striking Force cells and the Ministries Police cells until all the police cells in the region had been audited.
He said police cells were a temporary place for holding suspects for initial investigations in reported cases.
So far, he said, investigations indicated that most of the people in custody were remand prisoners who were returned to the cells after complaining of various ailments at the Nsawam Medium Prison.
He said it had been realised that most of the remand prisoners were not comfortable in the prisons and preferred police cells.
ACP Yohuno sad remand prisoners often complained of sickness three days after being taken to prison custody and had to be returned to the police for medical care.
He expressed the hope that medical facilities at the prisons would be improved to take care of the health needs of remand prisoners.

Innovative Finance Ltd supports fihsmongers

2010-02-09T23:45:00.000-08:00

Page 25: Daily Graphic, February 10, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
INNOVATIVE Finance Limited, a micro-finance organisation, yesterday launched a programme to support fishmongers at the Adabraka market with energy-saving ovens.
The programme, which forms part of Innovative Finance Ltd’s one year anniversary, was in collaboration with Energy4everyone Foundation of Canada.
The Chief Executive Officer of Innovative Finance Ltd, Ms Shiela Azuntaba, said the choice of the Adabraka market was because the company wanted to give back to the community in which it was located.
She said the two organisations would extend their activities to Chorkor and James Town, both in the Greater Accra Region, and to Tamale in the Northern Region after the success of the pilot programme at Adabraka.
A representative of Energy4everyone Foundation, Mr Jamie Gordon, said the mission of the organisation was to improve access to modern energy to those communities that needed it.
That, he said, the organisation did by delivering sustainable, reliable and affordable energy technology through which it empowered communities.

Interior and Foreign Affairs in ... PASSPORTS TUG-OF-WAR

2010-02-08T23:20:00.001-08:00

Front Page: Daily Graphic, February 9, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and the Passport Office are embroiled in a dispute over which of the two institutions has the mandate to issue biometric passports in the country.
The controversy threatens to delay Ghana’s migration from manual passports to the use of biometric ones by April this year.
Spokespersons for both the GIS and the Passport Office told the Daily Graphic that the new date of March 23, 2010 which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had set for the migration to be effected would not materialise unless the impasse had been amicably resolved.
Part of the revenue to be generated from the exercise is to be retained by the issuing authority as an internally generated fund and some sources have pointed to that incentive as one of the reasons why both the GIS and the Passport Office are so embroiled.
And with no clear position on who is in charge, the two institutions have acquired new offices in Kumasi to be used as the Passport Application Centre.
The Daily Graphic has, however, learnt that the matter is currently at the Presidency, as earlier attempts to settle it at the stakeholders, the ministerial and National Security levels failed to arrive at a solution.
Under the prevailing law, NRC Decree 155, the Passport Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration has the power and authority to issue passports. However, the GIS, under the Interior Ministry, is the body which receives and vets application forms before their onward submission to the Passport Office.
The Passport Office intends to do away with that function of the GIS in the issuance of the biometric passports and towards that end the office has proposed to the government to recruit 85 data entry clerks for the purpose of manning the application centres.
The Passport Office further adds that its decision to take absolute control of the processing and issuance of biometric passports has been informed by complaints from applicants that they often encounter delays in the processing of their forms.
In its defence, the GIS argued that since it was the body that dealt with the administration of passports after their issuance, it must continue to receive and vet applications until such time that the law was amended to give the issuance of passports to the GIS.
It is the case of the GIS that the world over it is the duty of the Home Affairs Ministry, through its immigration authorities, to receive and vet passport applications and issue passports.
While acknowledging the fact that the current law gave the mandate to the Passport Office, the GIS said it was asked to use its offices throughout the country to receive and vet application forms before their onward submission to the Passport Office.
“As I speak with you now, some district and regional offices, particularly the Greater Accra offices, of the GIS do nothing apart from passport processing. So what will happen to the offices and the staff?” it asked
It said it handled all passport matters after issuance and so it made sense that that outfit should be made to handle everything about passports.
According to the GIS, it had an automated system in place at its headquarters where all data captured could be sent for easy accessibility.
It contended that in cases of terrorism and security, it had been the GIS that had been called in to handle the situation.
It said it had established goodwill with the donor community which could come in handy with the acquisition of more computers and facilities to expand the application centres countrywide.
Under the original schedule of implementation, in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) directive that all countries must migrate onto biometric passports by April 2010, Ghana should have launched its programme in July 2009.
However, the turf war between the two organisations has continuously delayed the implementation.
Equipment procured for installation at the application centres has been lying idle at the offices of the company which won the bid to produce the passport booklets.

Biometric passports put on hold

2010-02-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

Page 48: Daily Graphic, February 5, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Passports Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration says its plan to begin the issuance of biometric passports to Ghanaians has been put on hold until the heavy backlog of passports applications currently at the office has been cleared.
It has, therefore, set March 23, this year as the new date to begin the sale of new forms for the biometric passports which should have begun yesterday (Wednesday).
The period will also be used to replace all hand written passports being held by Ghanaians abroad with appropriate booklets.
Under the schedule for the introduction of the biometric passports, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, was to release the new forms from January 25, 2010 while the launch was to take place yesterday, February 3, 2010.
Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, the sector Minister, however told the Daily Graphic today that the date for the sale of the forms had to be changed to co-incide with the launch date to avoid the situation where applicants would have to wait till the launch.
Already the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) has taken delivery of the application forms and 750,000 biometric passport booklets ready for the launch
Alhaji Mumuni said the postponement of the launch date was also to ensure the maturity of the Legislative Instrument currently before Parliament for the new fees to be charged.
He explained further that it also became obvious that the launching of the biometric passports was going to create problems for the issuing authority since quite a number of applications were still in their possession.
He said until the biometric passports were launched on March 23, 2010, persons who urgently require passports to travel could apply for the present generation of passports.
Reacting to concerns of the quality of the biometric passports, Alhaji Mumuni said, a lot of checks had been done on it and explained that the design was approved by a stakeholders committee made up of representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, National Security, Bureau of National Investigations, the police, Ghana Immigration Service and the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department.
He said the committee had since 2006, been meeting on every Wednesday to discuss issues concerning the project.
Alhaji Mumuni said the company printing the biometric passport booklets was not new to the business as it currently prints those of Liberia since 2007.
He said the Attorney-General’s Department had also given the company a clean bill of health after the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigated it for a series of allegations.
According to the Minister, the government cannot abrogate the contract because the government had already paid out £5 million pounds of the entire project cost to the company.
He referred the Daily Graphic to an advertisement in the March 3, 2007 edition of the Ghanaian Times which solicited for comments on the award of the contract to the company in line with the award of the contract.
He said it was after no adverse comments were submitted that the government signed the contract.
Alhaji Mumuni said the company had also kept to its timetable and referred the Daily Graphic to a letter written by the company on March 28, 2008, complaining about the delay in the implementation schedule.
Part of the letter read: You may note from the attached implementation schedule that Buck Press have kept to the timetable and are presently at Week 20 - installation, testing and training. However, in not selecting the sites, the ministry is still at Week three (3). It is our hope that the ministry would work seriously to select the passport application sites within the next few days”.
Alhaji Mumuni said the company had since installed the Central Operations Production (COP) centre for the issuance of the passports while the equipment for the six application centres were all ready to be installed.
He said the contract sum also included installation of both hardware and software at the application centres and a five year maintenance, support and spares services.
The biometric passport will incorporate features such as a watermark paper, holographic foil, invisible and visible features and digital photographs such as the Supreme Court, Parliament House and the adinkra symbols and, therefore, make it difficult to forge and prevent multiple acquisition.
Alhaji Mumuni said Ghana’s missions in London, Rome, Berlin and Washington have been identified to also issue the biometric passports until a time that it was extended to more missions.
The Daily Graphic in its December 30, 2009, edition published that new forms for the issuance of biometric passports would be available to Ghanaian applicants from January 25, 2010 when the old forms will be withdrawn.

Caught in the act

2010-01-31T23:26:00.001-08:00

Page 14: Daily Graphic, February 1, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A 27-YEAR-OLD man who had been on the police wanted list since August last year for a series of robberies at some boutiques in Accra, was on Wednesday arrested when he went to the Britz Boutique, adjacent the Granada Hotel, to attempt another robbery.
The suspect, Raymond Akwasi Sarfo, allegedly pulled a gun on the salesgirl at the Britz Boutique, tied her up and pulled her into the dressing room, before packing 37 shirts, 11 pairs of shoes and two suits into a “Ghana Must Go” bag.
He was, however, arrested after the salesgirl managed to free herself from the ropes and raised the alarm to draw passers-by to her aid.
When he was overpowered by the crowd, a gun, a dagger and a pair of scissors were retrieved from him.
At an identification parade in which other victims identified him, Sarfo, upon seeing the salesgirl, admitted that he was at her shop on Wednesday.
Until yesterday’s incident, Sarfo had been captured on Close Circuit Television (CCTV) at the Apparel Boutique at East Legon, where he had robbed and bolted with items worth GH¢10,000 on August 13, 2009.
The pictures of that incident were shown to journalists yesterday.
Briefing newsmen in Accra, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, said at about 9:30a.m. on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, the suspect went to the Britz Boutique, where he pulled a gun at the salesgirl.
She said just as he was taking the stolen items to a waiting taxi, which he had hired, the salesgirl emerged from the boutique to raise the alarm for the suspect’s arrest.
DCOP Atinga said during interrogation, Sarfo allegedly admitted committing other robberies at the M.H. Trends Boutique near the Mensvic Hotel, where items worth GH¢7,000 were stolen, Nyemi Secret Boutique and Special Plaza boutique, all at East Legon, as well as the Landy’s Boutique at West Legon on August 10, 2009, where items worth GH¢5,000 were stolen.
According to her, Sarfo mentioned Ikechuku, a Nigerian, and Paa Kodjo as his accomplices but claimed that Ikechuku had gone back to Nigeria while Paa Kodjo was currently in Kumasi processing an application form to enrol at one of the private tertiary institutions there.

Chief Justice launches code of conduct for judiciary

2010-01-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

Page 24: Daily Graphic, January 29, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Justice Georgina T. Wood, yesterday launched a Code of Conduct for judges, magistrates and employees of the Judicial Service of Ghana to set a standard for ethical behaviour in the judiciary.
The Code of Conduct is based on the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct, which was developed by the Judicial Integrity Group, an informal gathering of chief justices and senior justices in Bangalore, India in 2001.
It outlines the values and principles that define the professional roles of judges, magistrates and employees and focuses on the practical application of those principles such as conflict of interest situations, the use of official information and public resources, receiving of gifts or benefits, among others.
At the launch, which was also used to inaugurate a provident scheme for workers of the Judicial Service, Mrs Wood said the vision to create a transparent and accountable judiciary could only be realised if the entire staff of the judicial service clearly understood that they were not above the law or immune from their obedience to the letter.
She reminded them that judicial accountability and independence underpinned public confidence in the Judicial Service, adding that a trustworthy and dependable judiciary was so critical to the success of any national anti-corruption strategy that it was believed that “judicial integrity must clearly be secured first, before other meaningful initiatives are pursued”.
According to her, corruption was one of the main obstacles to political stability, the rule of law, democratic governance and sustainable socio-economic development.
Mrs Wood said Ghanaians expected the judiciary to serve them with courage, transparency and integrity and was hopeful that with the publication of the codes, the conduct of the judiciary would inspire judicial probity among judges, magistrates and employees.
Mrs Wood gave the assurance that the Judicial Training Institute would organise and co-ordinate training on the code for all employees, judges and magistrates.
Touching on the provident fund, the Chief Justice said the main pension scheme from SSNIT did not meet the expectations of the average Ghanaian worker in the formal sector when they proceeded on retirement.
She, therefore, commended the JUSAG for the initiative to ensure that employees enjoyed a reasonably comfortable package when they went on retirement.
Mrs Wood appealed to other staff of the Judicial Service who had not yet joined the scheme to do so, since it would be to their benefit.
The President of JUSAG, Mr Adia Abdul-Latif, described retirement as nightmarish for the staff of the Judicial Service because the SSNIT pension was inadequate even for the basic necessities of life.
He said the provident fund was the insurance cover for all members who joined the scheme as the next of kin of members were entitled to GH¢1,000 on the demise of the member in addition to the full contribution and interest generated on their contribution.
He said since the scheme started in October, 2009, 500 members of staff representing 10 per cent, had joined.