The 2024 budget allocations for the Office of the President and the Chief of Staff Secretariat have drawn harsh criticism from the Minority caucus in Parliament.
Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson demanded an explanation for the “exponential increases,” citing a 100% increase in the President’s office budget to over 1 billion cedis and a 277 million cedi allocation for the Chief of Staff’s office.
“The Office of the President, in particular, their budget is being increased by over 100 per cent, from 2023 to 2024 so what exactly are they going to do in 2024, is it the elections, is that the reason they have budgeted so much? The office of the presidency alone, their goods and services alone is 450 million cedis.”
“The budget they have allocated to the Office of the President alone is 1 billion and 93 million Ghana cedis for the year 2024. Mr Speaker, All of us agree that the country is in a crisis and there is a need for us to be careful about how we spend money.”
The Minority also slammed the government’s establishment of Development Authorities like the Coastal Development Authority (CODA) as “a waste of resources” and a “pretext to amass resources for wrongful spending.”
They called for these authorities to be outlawed, arguing they have failed to deliver on their mandates.
Governs Agbodza, the Minority Chief Whip, led the charge against the authorities, stating those entities are nothing but avenues for siphoning funds away from critical areas.
The leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on aggrieved members and supporters of the party in the Sunyani East Constituency to remain calm as the party resolves their challenges.
Mr Haruna Mohammed, the Deputy General Secretary of the NPP, who made the call, emphasized that the “NPP is not the property of anybody”, and assured of the readiness of the leadership to resolve emerging challenges to ensure peace.
Mr Mohammed made the call when he interacted with agrieved members of the NPP in the Sunyani East Constituency over an album used for the elections.
In May 2022, the High Court in Sunyani ordered the NPP in the Sunyani East Constituency to set aside an album used for the constituency elections.
The court, presided over by Mr Douglas Seidu, said there had not been “any polling station executive election, nor had they conducted any electoral area coordinator elections. These two elections must come on before the constituency elections.”
The orders followed a suit filed by four members of the party who appealed to the court to set aside the purported album used for the election, claiming it was not properly produced.
Consequently, the High Court ordered the National Headquarters of the NPP to delete from its national database the names of persons elected as polling station executives and electoral area coordinators or officers for the Sunyani East Constituency.
Thereby the party’s presidential Primary held November 4, 2023, which elected Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia as the flagbearer, was put on hold in the constituency.
Mr Mohammed advised the supporters to be patient and maintain their trust and confidence as the leadership of the NPP resorted to laid down structures to address their grievances.
Mr Kofi Ofosu Boateng, the Bono Regional Secretary, NPP, said the party was determined to maintain the Sunyani East seat and widen the votes of the presidential elections too, which required the support of every member and supporter.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential candidate, Former President John Dramani Mahama, has hinted of providing an affordable housing scheme for teachers and government workers in his next administration.
He said as workers contributing their quota to national development, they deserved better standards of living.
Mr Mahama was reacting to questions from a cross-section of teachers in the Ghana Education Service and other workers during a town hall stakeholder engagement at Apowa in the Ahanta-West Municipality.
It formed part of a two-way “Building Ghana Tour of the Western Region.”
Under the scheme, teachers and other workers would show their areas of preference for a-two-bed room self-contained apartment to be constructed, he said.
Mr Mahama said reasonable monthly deductions would be made from salaries of beneficiary workers with the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department without affecting their income.
The former President said workers were entitled to decent accommodation while in active service.
That, he noted, would allow them to use their pension benefits only to feed themselves and enjoy the rest of their lives.
Former President Mahama acknowledged that “if Ghana expect higher output of work in her developmental drive, then the plight of workers must be prioritised”.
Some New Patriotic Party (NPP) faithful in the Kwadaso Constituency have picked nomination forms for Professor Kingsley Nyarko, the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, to contest the constituency primary.
Mr Samuel Donkor, the Constituency Treasurer, who led the group to pick the forms, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that Prof. Nyarko had demonstrated beyond doubt his development-oriented pedigree as a legislator and a man of success.
Recounting his stay in Parliament, Mr Donkor said the MP undertook many projects in the constituency across all the sectors and commended him for his commitment towards development.
“We are here this afternoon to pick a nomination form on behalf of our Member of Parliament because we believe in his vision to represent the good people of Kwadaso,” he noted.
“Prof. Nyarko is the best candidate to lead the party into victory come 2024 because of his hard work and contributions in advancing the development of the constituency.”
It was, therefore, prudent to give the Kwadaso Legislator their full support to continue his good work, Mr Donkor said.
He called on the delegates to retain the MP and appealed to all contestants to conduct their campaigns peacefully, devoid of insults, knowing that they were all within one NPP family.
The NPP will hold its parliamentary primary on Saturday, January 20, 2024, to elect parliamentary candidates for the general election.
Aspirants are expected to pick up forms from the constituency offices from 20th to 22nd December, 2023.
Elections in approximately forty districts in the Ashanti and Eastern Regions were delayed due to ballot paper errors, delays in voting material distribution, and malfunctioning Biometric Verification Devices (BVD).
Since then, stakeholders have urged the Commission to make sure that subsequent polls are free of incidents. The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) described as unfortunate the challenges that bedeviled the District Level Elections held nationwide on Tuesday, December 19.
The Electoral Commission (EC) will organize elections in district assemblies where the polls were postponed.
CODEO blamed the EC for not living up to its task and urged it to do better.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) also issued a stern warning to the EC to abort any agenda to repeat the technical challenges encountered during the DLEs.
The party cautioned the EC to desist from repeating the ‘ mess’ in the 2024 polls to prevent any untoward incidents.
Hayford Siaw, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Library Authority, has expressed confidence in winning the New Patriotic Party’s parliamentary primary for the Nsawam-Adoagyiri constituency, explaining that his exemplary track record and positive impact in the constituency position him favorably for success in the upcoming elections.
Speaking in an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM on Wednesday, Mr Siaw said “If we are supposed to go to polls today Hayford Siaw will get about 70% of the votes among the delegates in Nsawam-Adoagyiri. If you look at the track record of Hayford Siaw in the constituency, I have also contributed a lot to the delegates and the polling station executives.”
Meanwhile, he said he would give officers of the party in the constituency the benefit of the doubt for initially denying him the nomination forms.
He indicated “We want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they did not have the form with them or at the constituency office so we will not make any accusations without having any factual evidence to back it. They told us that the form is not in their office, so we will respect the statement that they made and believe so.”
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says he has never intervened in the ongoing investigation into former Sanitation and Water Resources Minister Cecilia Abena Dappah, and that the Special Prosecutor has been independent in his work since the investigations began.
He made the remarks at the launch of the evaluation of Ghana’s National Anti-Corruption Action Plan at the Jubilee House in Accra on Thursday.
“No evidence or allegation has been forthcoming that the executive has made any attempt to influence the outcome of any of these investigations. The latest episode involving the former Minister for Sanitation, the Honourable Cecilia Abena Dapaah, is evident for all to see.
“I am not aware of any government in the Fourth Republic subjecting so many of its officials to such investigations and enquiries.”
“At the same time, several officials in the previous Mahama administration such as William Matthew Tetteh Tevi, Alhaji Salifu Osman, and Eugene Baffour Bonney in the $ 4 million NCA’s scandal have been tried and convicted of various corruption-related offences and several other including Dr Stephen Opuni, the former CEO of COCOBOD and the Honourable Cassiel Ato Forson, the Minority Leader are standing trial as we speak,” he said.
The Statue of Freedom is seen at the top of the U.S. Capitol building dome in Washington, U.S., December 20, 2023. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
The U.S. Congress left Washington this week for an extended holiday break with a number of important issues unresolved, including tighter border security and emergency aid for Ukraine.
This will make January complicated as lawmakers must meet two deadlines for the government shutdown and continue working on a single bill that will slow the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border and fund Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
In the meantime, Republican candidates for the 2024 presidential election will start to be selected. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed confidence that Congress will get back to work quickly this week.
Biden has urged Congress to approve an additional $61 billion in new support for Ukraine’s war effort, which conservative Republicans have demanded be paired with stronger border security laws at a time of record immigrant arrivals.
House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and his fellow Republicans have been hammering Biden over border control, an issue U.S. voters are increasingly restless over.
Congress also has deadlines of Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 for funding U.S. government programs. Failure to reach deals on 12 spending bills, following a full year of deficit-reduction battles, would bring widespread government shutdowns.
Bipartisan Senate negotiations are also continuing over the recess with the aim of producing a deal on reforming antiquated U.S. asylum laws. That would open the door to Senate votes to help Ukraine and send U.S. aid to Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza and to Taiwan.
Just before leaving town on Wednesday, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed Schumer’s urgency, saying in a speech that the unusual combination of U.S. immigration reforms and foreign military aid were urgently needed “from South Texas to Southeast Asia and to the Red Sea.”
Both Schumer and McConnell acknowledged that passing the first major immigration revisions in four decades is arduous. But so is simply approving around $1.5 trillion to keep a bunch of regular government programs operating.
Without action, many agriculture and nutrition programs will run out of funding on Jan. 19, along with money for airports, highways and federal housing programs and for building military facilities and maintaining veterans’ aid.
There also are plenty of fights over the funding and policies of the Justice Department and social safety net programs administered by Health and Human Services. These too face a Feb. 2 deadline and can be among the toughest annual appropriations bills to pass in Congress.
A dozen people were still missing on Thursday after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Gansu province late Monday, and netizens questioned the speed at which rescue operations had ended.
Chinese media reported that search-and-rescue work in Gansu ended at 3 p.m. (0700 GMT) on Tuesday, about 15 hours after the disaster hit a remote and mountainous area near the border straddling Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
It was not immediately clear whether the search in Qinghai was continuing. In Gansu, 115 people had been found dead as of 9 a.m. on Wednesday (0100 GMT) and 784 were injured, authorities said. Gansu has not reported any missing persons.
Neighbouring Qinghai saw its death toll rose to 22 with 198 injured and 12 missing as of 8:56 p.m. on Wednesday.
More than 207,000 homes were wrecked and nearly 15,000 collapsed in Gansu, affecting more than 145,000 people.
Discussions online showed netizens curious about how quickly rescue efforts wrapped up in Gansu, with many suggesting that the sub-freezing temperatures were the main factor in shortening the “golden period” for finding survivors – typically 72 hours post-disaster.
People trapped under rubble exposed to prolonged temperatures of -10° Celsius (14°F) run the risk of rapid hypothermia and may only be able to live for five to 10 hours even if uninjured, local media reported, citing researchers.
“They would have been dead by the time they were found, even 24 hours is already too long. Outdoor temperatures are below minus 10 C,” a user on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo commented.
Some users on Weibo considered other factors such as that the search area was not especially wide, and that people have been all accounted for, leading to rescue efforts ending in less than a day.
[1/4]A man stands at his damaged house at Sibuzi village following the earthquake in Jishishan county, Gansu province, China December 21, 2023. REUTERS/Xiaoyu Yin Acquire Licensing Rights
Rescuers on Wednesday pulled to safety victims of the earthquake, which jolted Jishishan county in Gansu a minute before midnight on Monday, sending many residents in the area out of homes into the cold in the dead of the night.
Survivors face uncertainty in the wintry months ahead without permanent shelter amid freezing temperatures.
Many of the affected families are Hui people, an ethnic minority mostly found in western Chinese provinces and regions such as Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi.
In Gansu’s Sibuzi village, villagers worried about the freezing winter.
“Many people escaped from their homes, some without socks, just ran out barefoot. It’s extremely cold standing on the ground,” said Zhou Habai, an ethnic Hui woman.
The 24-year-old, now staying in a makeshift tent after her home was destroyed, said some villagers have been gathering and burning firewood to keep warm.
About 60% of the survivors have not received tents, 63-year-old Ye Zhiying, from the same village, told Reuters.
He said officials from the Communist Party had told them that the village would distribute tents by noon on Thursday, and would be set up in less than a week.
“Whether everyone can be accommodated or not, we don’t know,” said the Hui villager, who was given a tent on Wednesday.
Roads, power and water lines and agricultural production facilities have suffered damage, and the quake triggered land and mudslides that swept through villages in Qinghai’s Haidong where the missing were reported from.
Fighting in the Gaza Strip intensified on Thursday, with what locals described as some of the most intense Israeli bombardment of the war, even as the enemies held what Washington called “very serious discussions” on a new cease-fire.
The northern part of the Gaza Strip saw the most intense bombing, with planes roaring overhead and the booms of air strikes thundering every few seconds, punctuated by rattling gunfire.
In the southern half of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people are seeking refuge from the war that has destroyed much of Gaza, Hamas claimed that an Israeli strike killed the commander of the main checkpoint, which opened just days earlier ago to let in aid.
Residents in Jabalia in the north of the Strip close to the Israeli border said the area was now completely cut off with Israeli snipers now firing on anyone trying to escape.
“It was one of the worst nights in terms of the occupation bombings. Also we could hear heavy fighting despite that,” said one Jabalia resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
With Gaza’s communications links shut down for a second day, the resident spoke to Reuters by phone using an electronic SIM card to access the Israeli mobile network across the fence. Gazans say such cuts to communication links have typically heralded Israeli assaults.
In a social media post, the Palestinian Red Crescent said ambulances were now unable to reach large numbers of casualties inside Jabalia.
“We have received several appeals regarding continuous shelling on Al-Banna Street, Nazzala in Jabalia, northern Gaza with dozens of martyrs and wounded individuals besieged there. Unfortunately, neither the emergency teams nor the rescue teams have been able to reach them,” it said.
The World Health Organization said on Thursday the last hospital in the northern half of the Gaza Strip had effectively ceased functioning over the past two days, leaving no place left to take the wounded.
The intensification of fighting comes even as diplomatic efforts have been ramped up in the final weeks of the year to stave off humanitarian catastrophe.
The sides are discussing a new truce to release some of the more than 100 hostages still held by militants who stormed Israeli towns on a killing spree on Oct. 7. At the same time, the UN Security Council is working on a new plan to ramp up aid.
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that controls Gaza, was in Egypt for a second day on Thursday for negotiations, a rare personal intervention which in the past has signalled important stages in diplomacy. Islamic Jihad, another militant group, said its leader was also headed there.
The talks appear to be the most serious since a week-long ceasefire collapsed at the start of the month, but the public positions of the opposing sides are far apart. Israel says it will negotiate only on a temporary pause in fighting to free hostages; Hamas says it is interested only in negotiations that will lead to a permanent end to fighting.
[1/7]Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, December 20, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa Acquire Licensing Rights
“These are very serious discussions and negotiations, and we hope that they lead somewhere,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday. President Joe Biden said: “We’re pushing.”
Hamas said in a statement that Palestinian factions had taken a united position that there should be “no talk about prisoners or exchange deals except after a full cessation of aggression”.
Earlier, Taher Al-Nono, Haniyeh’s media adviser, told Reuters: “We cannot talk about negotiations while Israel continues its aggression. Discussing any proposal related to prisoners must occur after the cessation of aggression.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen confirmed that negotiations on a hostage release were ongoing but declined to provide details, while repeating Israel’s position that war would not end while Hamas controls Gaza.
“I don’t know of any reduction in the intensity of the warfighting,” Cohen told Ynet TV. “There is no talk of reducing the intensity, at least not in the coming weeks.”
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement: “Whoever thinks we will stop is detached from reality… All Hamas terrorists, from the first to the last, are dead men walking.”
Washington, Israel’s closest ally, has told it in recent days to scale down its ground offensive soon, after Biden said “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza was eroding global sympathy that had poured in for Israel following the Hamas rampage.
STRIKE KILLS BORDER CROSSING COMMANDER
Hamas officials said an Israeli air strike at the gates of the Rafah crossing to Egypt on Thursday morning had killed four people including Bassam Ghaben, director of the Gaza side of the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing.
Israel’s military indicated it was not involved, saying it was not “familiar” with the incident.
Israel allowed Kerem Shalom to open just this week, increasing aid volumes, though U.N. agencies say it remains a trickle compared to the vast needs. Previously, aid had to be inspected by Israelis, then trucked back to Egypt to cross at Rafah, a gate intended for pedestrians.
Israel launched its campaign in the Gaza Strip with the aim of annihilating Hamas whose fighters raided Israel on Oct. 7. They took some 240 hostages and killed 1,200 people, according to Israel, which says it cannot be safe until the group sworn to its destruction is eliminated.
Since then, nearly 20,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed, according to the Palestinian health ministry, with several thousand more bodies believed to be trapped under rubble. Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.
The U.N. Security Council was due to vote on Thursday on a resolution to boost aid after a delay at the request of the United States. The draft would give the U.N. a wider role overseeing aid shipments, seen as diluting Israel’s control. Washington, which has twice shielded its ally by vetoing resolutions demanding a ceasefire, is also concerned about language calling for a halt to hostilities.
