Dasebre Oduro Guranim I, the Paramount Chief of Dodo Traditional Area, has appealed to political party leaders, actors, as well as agents and assigns to campaign on issues devoid of personal attacks and insults.
He said the use of inflammatory and abusive language on opponent rather than telling the Ghanaian electorate what they were capable of doing would cause chaos in the country.
Daasebre Guranim made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Kadjebi in the Oti Region.
“Tell Ghanaians what you are able of doing. Good roads, hospitals, schools, solving unemployment and finding jobs for the youth,” he said.
He said politicians should think of improving the living conditions of the citizenry instead of their parochial interest in the run-up to the December 7 polls.
Daasebre Guranim, who also the Vice-Chairman of Akan Wawa Traditional Congress, said referring to former Heads of State in terms of performance was unnecessary, but telling what one can do to leave an indelible mark in the history of the country.
He advised the youth not to allow themselves to be used to causing mayhem before, during and after the polls; adding ” if any politician asks you to go and attack, tell him to send his son to go and attack”.
“Don’t go snatching ballot boxes. It is not good,” he added.
The Dodomanhene also advised the Electoral Commission to be transparent in all election related issues so as not to create suspicion.
The Danne x Ayrton Starwin Plc recorded a financial performance of Ghc7.6 million in 2023 as against losses of Ghc 3.5 million in 2022, representing an increase of 47.20 per cent.
Total assets of the company also grew from Ghc75.1million in 2022 to Ghc78.2 million in the year under review.
Mr Nik Amarteifio, the Board Chairman of the company, disclosed this at the Fourth Annual General Meeting in Accra.
He said the harsh economic conditions, which the country experienced in 2022 prevailed to the early parts of 2023, with inflation hovering around 56.6 per cent in January before coming down and closing the year at 23.2 per cent.
Mr Amarteifio said despite the challenging economic environment, the company executed its tasks relentlessly, implementing strategies that resulted in strong financial performance.
He said the company recognised the importance of good corporate governance as a means of sustaining the viability of the business.
‘The company had put in place a comprehensive health, safety and environment system to protect the environment and employees,” he said.
The Board Chairman said the company had also implemented an efficient and robust internal control system for identifying risks adding that ‘these controls are intended to provide reasonable assurance that the risks facing the company are being controlled.”
Mr Amarteifio said although the business and economic environment was likely to remain unpredictable this year, “we need to build on what we have achieved so far and make further progress towards achievement of our strategic objectives.”
“In as much as there has been marginal growth in some areas of the business, sales volumes have seen a steady decline, a key focus area for this year will be implementing initiatives to halt the decline to grow the volumes profitably,” Mr Amarteifio added.
Despite the profit made, the company did not recommend dividend for payment to the shareholders.
Mr. Joseph Baanaah Dabuo, an independent parliamentary aspirant in the Lawra Constituency, says he will pursue the development of the constituency with a special focus on women and youth empowerment.
He said as a young person he understood the challenges of the youth, including unemployment, while women, who were the most vulnerable group of people in society, were not empowered enough to participate actively in social and economic activities.
Mr. Dabuo said this in Babile in the Lawra Municipality during his inaugural ceremony as an independent parliamentary candidate in the upcoming election in December 2024 to represent the Lawra Constituency in parliament on January 7, 2025.
Scores of people in the Babile zone, including traditional leaders attended the ceremony, characterised by the performance of the traditional dance of the people of Babile.
Mr. Dabuo explained that his decision to contest the election was premised on the underdevelopment of the Lawra Constituency though it was one of the oldest districts in the Upper West Region and had witnessed successive political leaders who had done little towards its development.
As part of his commitment, Mr. Dabuo said he was constructing a bridge in the Pavuu community in the Municipality to facilitate economic activities in the area.
He had also facilitated the training of some women in Zambo, Domwine and Bagre communities on soap making as a source of economic activity for them.
He was also supporting the construction of a self-initiated health facility in Orbilii, and helped rebuild a collapsed portion of the Babile Fire Service Post.
Mr. Dabuo added that he had helped fund the education of about 20 people from the municipality at the tertiary level as well as donated football jerseys to some football teams in the constituency.
He indicated that the poor state of infrastructure of the Babile Market, the poor state of the road infrastructure in the district and the lack of support to the agricultural sector by political leaders in the municipality were a few challenges he sought to address if he were given the nod.
“We have a Municipal Chief Executive and now the NPP parliamentary candidate who has the opportunity to develop the constituency, but what are we seeing, nothing.
“We have an MP in parliament who is the NDC parliamentary candidate but has lost touch with the constituents,” Mr. Dabuo stated.
He said if elected the MP for the area, he would establish a mechanisation centre in some communities in the constituency to support farmers to increase production to improving their economic status.
He said that would also motivate the youth to venture into agriculture as a source of employment and livelihoods.
Other interventions he planned for the constituency included a rural bank for Babile, completion of abandoned health projects such as a ward project at the Babile Polyclinic, and improvement of market infrastructure within the municipality.
He criticised the MCE, Mr. Jacob Dery who doubled as the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate and Mr. Bede Ziedeng, the Member of Parliament for the area, for their indifferent attitude towards the development needs of the constituency.
The Babile zone declared its support for Mr. Dabuo, expressing hope that he would be the “messiah” who would save the community and the Municipality from the current development quagmire.
The World Bank has identified intra-African trade and digitalisation as key drivers of economic transformation on the continent, and urged that bottlenecks are removed.
The Bank said the two sectors offerred hopes for the continent’s transformation as they could provide significant opportunities for increased competition, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, and economic diversification.
This is in the Bank’s 2023 Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA), which was launched in Accra on Monday, July 16, 2024.
Speaking at the event, Dr Andrew Dabalen, Chief Economist, African Region, World Bank, asked African governments to create a conducive environment for the private sector, including affordable loans to the private sector to enhance productivity and expand access to market.
“Trade within Africa is low in general; only 20 per cent of African exports go to another African country, but whatever is traded is mostly manufactured, so, in general, it’s likely to be much more job creation than extractives,” he said.
“If the composition of trade changes, where the region could trade a lot more with itself, this could be a major engine of growth for the private sector,” the World Bank Chief Economist noted.
Regarding digitalisation, Dr Dabalen, stated that while 80 per cent of Africa was covered by 3G or 4G technology, only 22 per cent used it for productive use.
That, he said presented enormous potential, particularly for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises growth.
He, therefore, called for complementary investment to improve electricity access, and regulatory frameworks to engender increased productive use of digital technologies on the continent.
Mr David Ofosu-Dorte, Senior Partner, AB & David, a legal entity for businesses and projects in Africa, asked the private sector to come together to push for reforms that would make them thrive.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, he encouraged that instead of the private sector complaining, the players should form strong alliance with politicians to stimulate workable policies.
“Businesses around the world lobby for policies to be made, and that’s what they have to do here, rather than leaving it to the public sector, who would make a policy, which may end up being harmful to businesses” he said.
Mr Ofosu-Dorte recommended enhanced partnership between governments, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, and the private sector, to address the bottlenecks of regional and digital trade.
Abdoulaye Ndiaye, an Associate Professor of Economics, Leonard Stern School of Business, called for strengthening of regional bloc trade to deepen intra-continental trade by integrating agreements.
“There are a lot of competing agreements, like the African free trade zone, ECOWAS bloc, and there’s the need to strengthen those regional blocs and digitalisation can help a lot,” he said.
Particularly, he called for a seamless connection of ports and custom systems through digital tools, which he said would make trading of goods and services more efficient on the continent.
The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment report highlights policy trends, best practices, and key changes in Sub-Saharan Africa, covering 39 countries eligible for support by the International Development Association (IDA).
It assesses elements of policies and institutional arrangements within a country’s control for promoting sustainable growth and poverty reduction using four key indicators, which saw Africa’s score remaining at 3.1, just as in 2022.
The indicators are, economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions.
Mr Alban Bagbin, Speaker of Parliament, Tuesday called for collaboration between Parliament and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to nurture and sustain Ghana’s democracy.
“By working together, we can create a more transparent governance system,” Mr Kofi Attoh, Chief of Staff at the Office of the Speaker of Parliament, said this while reading a speech on the Speaker’s behalf during the opening of a two-day workshop for CSOs and Think Tanks in Accra.
The Citizens’ Bureau of Parliament organised the workshop on the theme: “Working with the Parliament of Ghana.”
He urged participants to commit to nurturing the partnership, recognising that collaboration was the key to building a stronger, more inclusive and resilient democratic society.
Mr Ebenezer Ahumah-Djieteror, Deputy Clerk, Corporate and Financial Management Services to Parliament, who spoke on behalf of Mr Cyril Kwabena Oteng Nsiah, the Clerk to Parliament, said a vibrant Civil Society was one of the cardinal features of a functional democracy.
He said over the past three decades, CSOs had played very important roles in nurturing and sustaining Ghana’s democracy.
“From the formative years of Ghana’s Fourth Republic till date, CSOs and Think tanks have contributed in diverse ways to strengthening the institution of Parliament and supporting to enrich the legislative process with their expertise, rich perspectives and research,” he said.
“It is in recognition of these critical roles CSOs play to positively impact the work of Parliament that the Legislature continues to expand the frontiers of collaboration with CSOs and think tanks in various ways.”
Mr Djietror noted that the partnership found expression in Parliament’s Corporate Strategic Plan, which, among other things, sought to institutionalise its engagements with CSOs and Think tanks as opposed to ad hoc engagements.
“…It was in response to this and from various engagements with CSOs that the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, inaugurated the Citizens’ Bureau as an office in Parliament to be responsible for facilitating CSO engagement with Parliament.”
The initiative was significant as Parliament sought to make it easier for CSOs to engage, obtain or share information with Parliament to enhance the quality of its decisions in the interest of citizens, he said.
The Deputy Clerk explained that Parliament existed to serve the people of Ghana and CSOs remained strategic partners that worked directly with citizens and aggregated their views on critical issues across various sectors.
As a result, he called for an effective Parliament-CSO
engagement, beyond positively impacting decision-making, to allow CSOs to support in its bid to enhance awareness of the work of Parliament.
“It is for this reason the Speaker commissioned the development of a manual titled: “Working with the Parliament of Ghana: A Guide to CSOs/Think Tanks”.
The manual is expected to provide detailed information about the functions of Parliament, how Parliament performs these functions, and how COS and think tanks desirous of working with Parliament can do so.
It is an important reference material that would be made available to all CSOs and think tanks to facilitate their engagements with Parliament.
Speaker Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin on Tuesday debunked media reports that a Bill on the use of sirens by Members of Parliament (MPs) has been laid before the House.
“There is nothing like that before Parliament,” Speaker Bagbin said in a keynote address at the opening of a Town Hall Meeting Public Lecture on the Private Member’s Bills in Ghana at the University of Ghana, Legon.
The meeting was organised by the Parliamentary Network Africa (PN Africa), in collaboration with the Students’ Parliament of the University of Ghana.
“And so I thought maybe something was being done behind me; so, I started calling all over, and all my directors said no, they haven’t seen anything like that,” he said.
“I have the responsibility of admitting many of these Bills, sometimes they may elude me, but I haven’t seen such a bill.”
The Speaker noted that he was later told it was a Legislation that Parliament was amending; saying “We don’t amend Legislations. We don’t have the power by the Constitution to amend Legislations or Instruments……I just told the people that no, no, as for that one, it can’t be true; because Parliament cannot amend (Legislations).”
Speaker Bagbin said the Constitution had delegated the power to amend Legislations to other bodies.
He said when such constitutional bodies brought an instrument before the House, be it a Legislative Instrument (LI) or a Constitutional Instrument (CI), if out of hundred provisions, the House disagreed with one, they were not even allowed to amend that one.
They (Members of Parliament) either had to throw out all the hundred, or they allowed it to pass, he said.
He reiterated that the framers of the 1992 Constitution made sure it was impossible for MPs to throw a Legislation out by insisting that they must have two thirds of majority votes to do that.
He said in a bipartisan Parliament like the current one, it was almost impossible to get two-thirds Majority to vote against an instrument, particularly because of the fundamentals of politicians; not only in Ghana but many countries.
So far, he only succeeded in getting Parliament to throw out an instrument, when he was the Chairman of the Parliamentary Subsidiary Legislation Committee in 1994, which Instrument came from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
“Since then, nothing like that has happened,” he said.
The lecture was to discuss Private Member Bills Regime and proffer proper solutions for the way forward.
Participants came from the University of Ghana, Accra Technical University, University of Media Arts and Communication (UniMAC) and Ashesi University.
Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the running mate to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Flagbearer, has paid a courtesy call on the the Paramount Chief of Manya Krobo Traditional Area, Nene Sakite II, for his prayers and guidance.
He said it was high time politicians paid attention to the important roles that chiefs played in governance to foster development.
Dr Prempeh, popularly known as Napo, and former Member of Parliament for Manhyia South Constituency, said after being nominated as the running mate of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the next step was to receive blessings and guidance from the chiefs in the country.
“Without the chiefs it would be difficult to promote national unity, stability, growth and development,” he said.
“For the record, I have to say that the chiefs laid the groundwork for the nation’s independence struggles. Therefore, they must be granted the needed dignity and respect due them to avoid any conflict.” Dr Prempeh appealed to the people of Manya Krobo to vote for the NPP during the general election this year to ensure their voices were heard in governance.
Nene Sakite, also the President of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, observed that historically successive governments ignored the chieftaincy institution.
He advised that whenever chiefs communicated challenges facing citizens to the government, the issues must be addressed and not swept under the carpet. Nene Sakite urged Dr Prempeh to continue to respect chiefs even after being elected as the Vice President of the country.
He applauded “Napo” for paying homage to him and recognizing the important roles that chiefs played in governance, which proved Dr Prempeh’s royal descent.
European politicians and diplomats had already prepared for changes to their relationship with the US in the event of a second Donald Trump presidency.
Now that the Republican candidate has chosen Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate, those differences appear even more stark on prospects for the war in Ukraine, security and trade.
A vocal critic of US aid to Ukraine, Mr Vance told this year’s Munich Security Conference that Europe should wake up to the US having to “pivot” its focus to East Asia.
“The American security blanket has allowed European security to atrophy,” he said.
Nils Schmid, a senior MP in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party, told the BBC that he was confident a Republican presidency would continue to stay within Nato, even if JD Vance came across as “more isolationist” and Donald Trump remained “unpredictable”.
However, he warned of a new round of “trade wars” with the US under a second Trump presidency.
An EU diplomat said that after four years of Donald Trump no-one was naïve: “We understand what it means if Trump comes back as a second-term president, regardless of his running mate.”
Portraying the EU as a sailing boat preparing for a storm the diplomat, who preferred not to be named, added that whatever they might be able to tie down, it was always going to be rough.
The US is Ukraine’s biggest ally, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week: “I’m not afraid about him becoming president, we will work together.
He also said that he believed most of the Republican party supported Ukraine and its people.
Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump also have a common friend in Boris Johnson, the former UK prime minister, who has consistently championed continued aid for Ukraine and recently met the former president at the Republican National Convention.
Following the meeting, Mr Johnson posted on X that he had “no doubt that [Mr Trump] will be strong and decisive in supporting that country and defending democracy”.
But even if that sentiment is true, it might not apply to Mr Vance, who, days before the full-scale invasion, told a podcast he “doesn’t really care what happens in Ukraine, one way or the other”. He also played a key role in delaying a $60bn military aid package from Washington.
“We need to try and convince him otherwise,” says Yevhen Mahda, the Executive Director of the Institute of World Policy think tank in Kyiv.
“A fact we can use is that he fought in Iraq, therefore he should be invited to Ukraine so he can see with his own eyes what is happening and how American money is spent.”
The question for Kyiv will be to what extent he can influence the decisions of his new boss.
Yevhen Mahda agrees that Trump’s unpredictability could be a problem for Kyiv in the run-up to the US presidential election.
The biggest supporter of the Trump-Vance ticket in the European Union is Hungary’s Viktor Orban who returned recently from a visit to see the Republican candidate, after visiting Mr Zelensky and President Putin, with whom he maintains close ties.
In a letter to EU leaders, Mr Orban said a victorious Donald Trump would not even wait to be inaugurated as president before quickly demanding peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
“He has detailed and well-founded plans for this,” the letter states.
Mr Zelensky has himself said this week that Russia should attend a peace summit possibly next November, and he has promised a “fully ready plan”. But he made clear he had not come under Western pressure to do so.
Viktor Orban’s recent “peace missions” to Moscow and Beijing have sparked accusations that he’s abusing his country’s six-month rotating presidency of the European Council. European Commission officials have been told not to attend meetings in Hungary because of Mr Orban’s actions.
During the Trump presidency, the US imposed tariffs on EU-produced steel and aluminium. Although they were paused under Joe Biden’s administration, Trump has since floated a 10% tariff on all overseas imports should he get back into the White House.
The prospect of renewed economic confrontation with the US will be seen as a bad, even a disastrous, outcome in most European capitals.
“The only thing we know for sure is there will be punitive tariffs levelled on the European Union so we have to prepare for another round of trade wars,” said Nils Schmid, the Social Democrats’ foreign policy lead in the Bundestag.
JD Vance singled out Berlin for criticism of its military preparedness earlier this year.
While he didn’t mean to “beat up” on Germany, he said the industrial base underpinning its arms production was insufficient.
Two British men have been reported missing in Sweden, the Foreign Office has said.
It comes after Swedish police said two people were found dead in a burned-out car on Sunday afternoon in Malmö, with the deaths being investigated as a suspected double murder.
Asked about the incident, a Foreign Office spokesperson told the BBC: “We are supporting the families of two British men reported missing in Sweden and are in touch with the local authorities.”
Police spokesman Patrtic Sors told the BBC he would not confirm the identity of the two men after reports in local media that they were believed to be British citizens, with more forensic testing to take place Wednesday morning.
Mr Sors said he believed a British man had rented the car, a black Danish-registered Toyota Rav 4, at an airport in Denmark hours before the bodies were discovered in the Fosie industrial area of Malmö.
Police are interested in any information and observations the public may have made of the car and the scene between 11:30 local time (10:30 BST) and 14:00 local time (13:00 BST) on Sunday.
Madam Betty Krosbi-Mensah, Member of Parliament for Afram-Plains North, says the selection of Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman, as the Vice-Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is a strong commitment of the party towards women empowerment.
“Former President Mahama in particular and the NDC in general have shown that they are ready to give women the needed push and support in governance having chosen a female running mate two times.”
In the fight for gender inclusiveness and women’s empowerment through the passing of the affirmative action law, “we must recognize leaders such as President Mahama who has broken the ceiling and chosen a woman to that level and support them to continue the path they have charted in that direction,” she said.
“Women’s inclusion and women’s perspective in governance especially in the legislative space was critical for national development and could not be discounted under any circumstance and that called for support to leaders who had shown the commitment.”
Speaking in an interview with the GNA Gender-desk, she appealed to women’s rights activists and all well-meaningGhanaians who believed in the women’s perspective to step up the fight for women’s inclusion because the space was male-dominated and therefore difficult for women without any intentional support measure.
Ms Krosbi-Mensah, the sole NDC female Member of Parliament in the Eastern region since 2016,has the bid for the third time to contest in the upcoming general election.
Ms Krosbi-Mensah whose father was once the MP for the area, has an honorary doctorate degree, M.A in Development Communication and B.A in Business Administration.
She served as the deputy director of the National Youth Employment Programme from 2009-2013 and has been an active youth and gender advocate.
In the last seven years, she has worked hard to improve the wellbeing and living conditions of the people of Afram Plains North, which is a deprived district with several island communities dotted along the volta river.
There has been massive infrastructure development in the areas of education and health with the construction of three Community Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound to serve some of the most far-reaching settlements namely Fasobetor, Ademupe and Abotanso communities.
She also initiated the construction of 20 pavilions to help with schools under trees in the island communities and currently “there is an ongoing project to instal solar energy for about 90 island communities scattered along the volta lake, to improve their economic lives as there was no electricity.
Apart from the infrastructure developments, the MP recounted her efforts in combating child trafficking and teenage pregnancies,which wereextremely high in the area, through concerted efforts and commitment to reduce it to the barest minimums.
“I have done a lot as the peoples representative and raised their standard of living over the years, but more needs to be done andthat is my motivation for contesting these coming elections to continue with what is left.
“Every woman is seen as a mother and so voting for a woman means a lot in terms of nurturing and commitment to duty.”
The Afram Plains North is one of the 33 constituencies in the Eastern region and considered as a safe seat for the NDC.
