Public Agenda articles from March 2011

Public Agenda archives from March 2011

'Invest in Women Enterprises And Entrepreneurs Now'.
March 28, 2011... Female Parliamentarians have been called upon to lobby their colleagues for votes on women strategic issues. They have been asked to be innovative and facilitate law reforms and new enactments that are friendly and practically motivating for...

Govt Under Pressure to Adopt Genetically Modified Crops.
March 28, 2011... Byline: Frederick Asiamah Pressure is mounting on Ghana to introduce Biotech/GM [Genetically Modified] Crops into its agricultural framework and allow for the production of biotech foods on commercial scale. If Ghana accepts, then she will...

UN Secretary General on World Tuberculosis Day.
March 28, 2011... Last Thursday, March 24, 2011 was celebrated globally as World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. Here in Ghana, the occasion presented the populace with the opportunity to learn about some startling facts concerning the disease. For example, many were...

Tackling the 'Borla' - Government Doing Its Best.
March 25, 2011... Byline: Frederick Asiamah Government says it is doing its best to support efficient and effective management of filth and its associated environmental problems in the towns and cities of the country. The assurance comes on the heels of the...

Moral Education Key to a Corruption-Free Country.
March 25, 2011... Byline: Mathias Aboba-Bolgatanga Participants at an anti-corruption forum have expressed a strong view that if Ghana really wants to reduce corruption to the barest minimum the right step to take is to make sound moral education a top...

New Criteria for Nurses Admission Is Retrogressive.
March 25, 2011... The changing scenes of life demand constant attendant changes in methods, modalities, procedures to ensure progress and advancement in knowledge and well being of humanity. Any system that fails to correspondingly move with the times will find...

Water Management Contractor,AVRL, Must Go!
March 25, 2011... Byline: Frederick Asiamah The Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has officially declared its disagreement to an extension of the urban water management contract of Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) when the...

Many Citizens Still Consume Non-Iodized Salt.
March 25, 2011... Byline: Basiru Adam Using salt as a vehicle to ensure Ghanaians take in enough iodine is proving daunting as small scale producers continue to flood the market with unfortified salt. According to a study by the Institute of Statistical,...

Tema Oil Refinery Suffers Another Crush.
March 25, 2011... Byline: George Amexo The case of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in the ensuing litigation over the pollution of Chemu II Lagoon suffered another setback last Tuesday when a motion it made to the court to amend portions of its statement of...

Promoting Economic And Socio-Cultural Rights of Diasporeans in Africa.
March 25, 2011... Byline: Navi Pillay Last Monday, March 21, was celebrated as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In commemoration of the day, Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, produced this...

300 Demand Water for Cities.
March 25, 2011... Byline: Frederick Asiamah Acting Executive Secretary of Ghana's Water Resources Commission (WRC), Ben Ampomah has emphasized the need for individuals to take up the responsibility of communicating appropriate measures and messages to...

Unknown Number of Nationals in Libya Poses Evacuation Problems.
March 25, 2011... Byline: Mohammed Suleman The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration has announced that it has evacuated over 16,000 Ghanaians stranded in Libya following the political turmoil in that country. A total of 16,822 Ghanaians have...

Akoto Ampaw Raises Red Flag.
March 25, 2011... Byline: George Amexo Even as Ghanaians look forward to Parliament's passage of the Right to Information Bill (RTI), a legal authority is calling for a review of certain portions of the Bill, especially the exemption clauses, the timelines,...

Searching for Water From Wells - a Focus On Ga East And West.
March 21, 2011... Byline: Frederick Asiamah "In this area, you either fetch water yourself from the well or you contract others to fetch you some. I pay six cedis for six black bowls full of water which I manage for about a week-and-half. For drinking water I...

Govt Must Tread Cautiously On Nuclear Programme.
March 21, 2011... Following the earthquake-activated nuclear disaster in Japan many countries are revising their nuclear energy plans. Industry experts say explosions at the three reactors in Japan will seriously affect what many call a nuclear renaissance, a...

Fate of Nursing Students in a Balance.
March 21, 2011... Byline: Irene J. Mensah Nursing students in the various Nursing and Midwifery Training institutions who gained admission into their respective schools after re-sitting / re-writing their Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) or West...

No Fears About Country's Nuclear Program.
March 21, 2011... Byline: George Amexo As Japan counts its losses following the earthquake-triggered nuclear disaster, authorities at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) say the country's nuclear project is safe and as such poses no threat to the...

RTI Coalition Congratulates Nigeria on Passage of Information Bill
March 21, 2011... The coalition on the Right to Information-Ghana has commended the Nigerian Senate for passing the Freedom of Information Bill of that country. The Senators passed the bill last week Wednesday, three weeks after its passage by the House of...

Govt, D-Partners Sign Financial Improvement MOU.
March 21, 2011... The Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Government of Ghana (GoG) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with four key Development Partners that sets out the framework to support the financing and implementation of the Ghana Integrated...

Tomorrow Is World Water Day
March 21, 2011... Byline: Ama Kudom-Agyemang Tomorrow, March 22, is World Water Day and the focus for this year's celebration is "Water and Urbanisation." The objective of World Water Day 2011 (WWD 2011) is to focus international attention on the impact of...

Gov't Urged Not to Underestimate Role of CSOs.
March 21, 2011... Byline: Basiru Adam If emerging oil-rich African countries are to succeed in effectively and efficiently utilizing revenues, governments cannot afford to close the door to Civil Society actors, Mr. Herbert M'cleod, a former UN Resident...

Black Queens Ranked.
March 21, 2011... Ghana's Black Queens have inched up one place on the Fifa Women's Ranking from 50 in November 2010 to 49 in March. The latest rankings, released on Friday March 18, 2011, ranks Ghana second on the African continent after Nigeria, which is ranked...

NHIA Slams Oxfam / Isodec Report.
March 21, 2011... The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has described as inaccurate and misleading a report recently launched by OXFAM UK, the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) and other non-Governmental Organizations which put the national...

Over 160 CEOs Support UN's Women's Empowerment Principles.
March 18, 2011... Declaring that gender equality in the private sector is "good for business", 167 chief executives from around the world have signed the Women's Empowerment Principles - Equality Means Business. UN Women and UN Global Compact, champions of the...

People-Centered Ecowas is Key to Regional Integration.
March 18, 2011... Byline: Mohammed Suleman Despite remarkable achievements chalked at the government level in respect of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) integration process, most national populations, especially those engaged in inter...

Paying Off the TOR Debt.
March 18, 2011... A Senior Economist with the Institute of Economic Affairs, Dr. John Kwabena Kwakye, has questioned the approach to settling the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) debt, arguing that it is seriously flawed. "Not only is the process cumbersome, it also...

The World Rethinks Nuclear Safety.
March 18, 2011... A massive earthquake measuring 8.9/9.0 on the Richter scale hit the Pacific Ocean's nearby north-eastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11, with an attendant tsunami, causing substantial damage to life and property, and bringing most parts of...

National Cycling Tour Begins 1st April.
March 18, 2011... Promasidor Ghana Limited, a leading beverage sponsor of the national cycling tour, has gone far with plans for the start of a 9-day "Cowbell National Cycling Tour of Ghana" beginning from the 1st to 9th April 2011. The initiative which was...

FOS Aid Fetes Deprived Kids.
March 18, 2011... Byline: Samuel Boateng FOS AID, a non-governmental organization which seeks to support and encourage young children into education, fête over 100 deprived pupils of God is Great Academy at Nsumia, a suburb of Nsawam-Odoblo in the...

Two Organizations Donate Drugs to Korle-Bu.
March 18, 2011... A health related Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Ghana, the Breast Care International (BCI) in collaboration with the National Cancer Coalition of Raleigh (NCC), USA, has donated large quantity of drugs worth $1.9 million to the Cardio...

Railway Dwellers Demand Compensation.
March 18, 2011... Byline: Basiru Adam As government prepares towards redeveloping the country's railway system, people living along the railway lines, particularly those who claim to have entered into genuine contracts with the then Ghana Railways Corporation,...

People-Centered Ecowas Crucial to Integration.
March 18, 2011... Thirty-six years after its establishment following the signing of the Treaty of Lagos on May 28, 1975 in the Nigerian commercial capital, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is still confronted with some challenges which are...

Child Rights Protection - the Role of the Community.
March 18, 2011... Byline: Mathias Aboba The Children's Act of Ghana, Act 560 1998, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other child rights laws define a child as a person below age 18. By these laws, persons of this age group are recognized and...

Shea Nut More Beneficial to Ghana Than Cocoa?
March 18, 2011... Byline: Mathias Aboba Owing to the multitude of great things attributed to Shea butter and the Shea tree, the Shea Industry is attracting a lot of attention around the world, and in Ghana many are of the view that despite ages of neglect from...

Road Transport Workers Are a Deprived Lot, Study Reveals.
March 18, 2011... Byline: Isaac Parbey Road transport workers in the West African sub-region are a deprived lot because of their poor conditions of service, a study has revealed. The study by the International Transport Federation (ITF) and the Trade Union...

NGOs Question Malaria Grant to Gold Miner.
March 18, 2011... Byline: Ama A. Amankwah Baafi The Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health (GCNH) has questioned the selection of AngloGold Ashanti by the Global Fund for HIV, Tuberculosis and malaria control, to carry out malaria programmes in Ghana. AngloGold...

Comply With 40 Percent Women Representation in District Assemblies.
March 18, 2011... ActionAid Ghana (AAG) has commended the government (through the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development - MLGRD) for the circular to all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies instructing them to appoint 40% women to their...

Ex-Gimpa Rector Chairs Zoomlion's New Board.
March 18, 2011... Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a leading private waste management company in the country has inaugurated a new Board of Directors to steer the affairs of the company in its bid to achieve enviable heights in the waste management and environmental...

Women, Youth Schooled in Peace- Building And Conflict Prevention.
March 18, 2011... The Canadian High Commission in collaboration with the Ghana Network for Peace building (GHANEP) has organized a two-day peace-building and conflict prevention capacity building workshop for women and youth drawn from the Dagbon District in the...

World Bank's New Plan for Africa's Support.
March 11, 2011... With Africa facing an unprecedented opportunity to transform itself and improve the lives of its people, the World Bank is responding with a new, ambitious strategy which could help African economies take off, the way the economies of Asia did...

Nsawam Gov't Hospital Refuse Situation Unacceptable.
March 4, 2011... One of the cardinal goals of the Millennium Development document is making quality healthcare accessible to all by 2015, indeed the emphasis is on universal access. This laudable dream can only be achieved if all stakeholders make conscious...

Nsawam Hospital Drowns in Refuse.
March 4, 2011... Byline: Mohammed Suleman Nsawam Government Hospital which serves the medical needs of patients in and outside the Akuapem South Municipal Assembly in the Eastern Region is grappling with serious sanitation problems. The facility has been...

Greater Transparency in Oil And Gas Essential.
March 4, 2011... Byline: Administrator Halting corruption in resource rich countries... Oil and gas companies have improved the transparency of how they report revenues and information about anti-corruption programmes but should take bolder actions to...

Cdd Leads Action Against HIV/Aids Victims Stigmatization.
March 4, 2011... Byline: Mavis Otinkorang The Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) in collaboration with the Anti-stigma Advisory Team has launched the HIV/ADIS anti-stigma discrimination Campaign rights of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in...

Tor's Chemu Pollution Case Rages On.
March 4, 2011... Byline: George Amexo ... adjourned to March 22 Hearing in the case in which the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has been dragged to court for allegedly spilling oil into the Chemu Lagoon has been adjourned to Tuesday, March 22. The pollution was...

Parliamentary Corps Charged to Avoid Reckless Reportage.
March 4, 2011... Byline: Isaac Parbey Members of the Parliamentary Press corps have been asked to desist from reckless reporting and be guided by the cardinal principles of the journalism profession, in order to promote the welfare of the people of Ghana...

Millions Still Defecate In Open.
March 4, 2011... Byline: George Amexo For lack of sanitation facilities, about a fifth of the country's estimated 24million population (five million) still defecate in the open, especially in gutters, bushes, backyards, dung hills and the beaches. This...

Libyan Crisis - Usa Varsity Cultural Exchange Expresses Solidarity With Libyan Students.
March 4, 2011... Byline: Letter Dear Editor,The membership and the Board of the African Cultural Exchange, a student-run organization at Fordham University wishes to extend a strong brotherly support to the brave students and youths in Libya who are...

Where is Ghana's Tobacco Control Bill?
March 4, 2011... Byline: Jeorge Wilson Kingson ... Stakeholders want to know Has Ghana's Tobacco Control Bill put together by a National Tobacco Steering Committee, for the attention of government gone missing? This was the question on the lips of many...

Disempowered in Equatorial Guinea Cry Out.
March 4, 2011... Byline: Steve Manteaw, Reporting From Paris As EITI Global Conference gets underway Citizens in Equatorial Guinea trying to take advantage of the government's pledge to allow greater citizen participation continue to face serious obstacles...