Accra, Jan 11, GNA – Vice President John Dramani Mahama has called on Africans to establish domestic organisations that would enable them to monitor and evaluate their performance in various sectors, instead of their over-dependence on foreign and donor support.

He said their perennial engagement of such foreign organisations was not helpful to the continent as most of them were not accustomed to the African culture and values and at the end distort their historical origins.

Vice President Mahama made this call on Wednesday during the sixth African Evaluation Association conference under the theme: “Rights and Responsibility in Development Evaluation in Accra”.

The African Evaluation Association was founded in 1999 in response to a growing demand for information sharing, advocacy and advanced capacity building in evaluation in Africa.

The Association, which is an umbrella organisation of national monitoring and evaluation associations and networks in Africa was organised in Ghana by the National Development Planning Commission and the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana in collaboration with the secretariat.

Vice President Mahama appealed to member countries to focus their evaluations on the levels of poverty in the continent and device ways of mitigating such levels to make the region attractive to nationals of other continents.

He appealed to African groups and societies to mobilise learn and engage themselves in re-positioning the continent in the areas of good governance, democracy and the rule of law in the coming years.

Mrs. Florence Etta president of Africa Evaluation Association, said development was about creating an enabling environment which would provide Africans to harness their full potential to exercise their rights.

She noted that the enjoyment of human rights could pave a way for the development and transformation of countries to better positions in all sectors of development.

Mr. Paul Victor Obeng, Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, who chaired the programme, reiterated the relevance of empowering women in Africa as a collective responsibility of all Africans.

GNA

General News of Friday, 9 December 2011

Source: GNA

President Obama in a recent comment threatened to cut US foreign aid to countries including Ghana that will disrespect the rights of homosexuals.

President Obama’s comments come after UK Prime Minister David Cameron recently issued similar threats to cut aid to anti-gay nations.

But the vociferous opposition legislator in a heartless manner condemned his threats and said President Obama can go to hell and called on well meaning Ghanaians to ignore him.

“I was shocked when I heard it from such a man I hold in [high] esteem,” the firebrand said. “I have lost respect for him on this issue because what he is saying here is that if men and men and women and women are not allowed to sleep he will not give us foreign aid, then that is [funny]. ”

“Is that what God asked us to do by saying that we should go out and multiply; did he say men and men, women and women should sleep and multiply the generation, if he indeed said that he is a nonentity,” he fumed.

Hon. Appiah Ofori asked Ghanaians to ignore the US President and concentrate on issues of national concern that will promote their wellbeing.

General News of Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Source: citifmonline

Many of those who have passed commentary about the president’s visit to Canada over the weekend, have wondered why he paid the visit without holding an event in Toronto where out of 80,000 Ghanaians living in the Ontario Province, 50,000 are living in the Greater Toronto Area[GTA]alone.

Among those who passed their comments about the president’s visit to Ottawa-Canada to this reporter was Mr. John Anati, vice president of Ghanaian Canadian Association of Ontario [GCAO], Mr. Eric Agyeman, board member of Algonquin College, Prince Ofosu Sefa, NPP Secretary of Toronto Chapter as well as other members in the area.

Mr. John Anati, on behalf of the association right before addressing the president at the town hall meeting in Ottawa expressed how disappointed Ghanaians in Toronto were as the head of state never considered coming down to meet with them and also provide answers to many questions bothering them about issues concerning governing the state.

“If you look at how the questions were being fired you could see that there is no strong link between the high commission and the people in finding answers to problems they are facing” an observation made by Mr. Eric Agyeman of Algonquin College.

He posited that is time appointment to head the high commissions are done not by looking for people holding PhDs, Professors or of people with so many degrees but rather very energetic persons who can create a strong communication between the people and the government they represent. According to Prince Ofosu Sefa, Secretary of Toronto NPP chapter, it was interesting that the president did not hold an event in Toronto during his trip.

He found the president quite likable, approachable and serene adding,” he seems to use this style sprinkled with frequent references to God/the Christian faith to charm the audience. However, he is a boring and uninspiring speaker. He does not command the room”.

Other residents whom this reporter collected their views about the president’s visit commented that from what he said it seems he came to tell them what they knew of already as problems existing and not how his government is finding solutions to those problems.

Really, many were those who conducted research and drafted their grilling questions to face the president should he had interacted with Ghanaians resident in Greater Toronto Area [GTA] during his visit.

Some of the questions the president would have attempted to answer were why not rebuking his insulting ministers, the influx of Fulani herdsmen into the country posing security threats to the ordinary people, persistent strikes by doctors, nurses, teachers and other civil servants without government finding solutions to them and many more.

Source: Ghanaweb

President Mills, according to the released Wikileaks cables released, stated that politics was very polarized and ethnically divided in the country and that he was terrified by the great “Ashanti project”.

Then candidate Mills, as captured on the cable with the subject “Ambassador meets opposition NDC leader John Atta Mills”, made the remarks when he met the then American ambassador to Ghana Pamela Bridgewater, on March 7, 2006.

The Ashanti regional youth wing of the NPP contended that the remarks purportedly made by then candidate Mills to the former Ambassador was not only unfortunate but demonstrated his dislike for the people of the Ashanti Region.

Addressing a press conference in Kumasi on Monday, Gideon Boako, the Ashanti regional youth organizer of the NPP, said President Mills showed his dislike for the people of the Ashanti region with his unsavory comments.

He said it was not surprising that then candidate Mills made those comments in the said interaction with the former diplomat as all along the law lecturer had explicitly confirmed his distaste for the people of the Ashanti region.

Boako indicated that because President Mills abhorred the people of the Ashanti region, he told the people of the Central region while on a campaign tour there in September 2008 that then President Kufuor had sited all the big cold stores in the Ashanti Region whilst he had sold and collapsed those in the Central Region.

He noted that because then candidate Mills wanted to incite the people of the Central Region against their countrymen from the Ashanti region, he lied when indeed the cold stores in the Central Region were collapsed and sold during his tenure as vice President of the country.

Mr Boako pointed out that the appointment of Prof Kofi Awoonor as the chairman of the Council of State further stressed the anti-Ashanti feeling in President Mills because the renowned politician wrote in his book, ‘The Ghana Revolution’ that Ashantis were seeking to create a hegemony in the country.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if we may ask, is the terrifying great Ashanti project indeed not a reechoing of Prof Awoonor’s sentiment that Ashanti’s were seeking to create hegemony in the country?” he quizzed.

Another sign of President Mills’ hatred for the people of the Ashanti region, Mr. Boako noted, was the fact that when then deputy Minister of Tourism Kobby Acheampong made unsavoury comments about people in Kumasi, he kept mute.

Instead, he said, President Mills rewarded Mr. Acheampong with a deputy interior minister position, a cabinet portfolio.

Mr. Boako noted that it had now become clear that the Mills-led government had abandoned major development projects in the Ashanti region because President Mills was terrified about the “great Ashanti project”.

Noting that Ghanaians did not know what the great Ashanti project was, the NPP youth organizer demanded an explanation from President Mills. He indicated that the silence on the part of President Mills and the government as a whole on the issue had confirmed that the former vice president actually made those uncomplimentary comments.

Stressing that the NPP was duly aware of the calculated neglect of the Ashanti Region by the government, Mr Boako noted that the NPP youth wing in the region would take every legal step to ensure that the region claimed its rights.

The press conference, which was attended by constituency youth organizers in the region, was graced by the Ashanti regional chairman of the party, Fred F. Antoh, and the national youth organizer, Anthony Abayifaa Karbo.

Source: Morgan Owusu, Kumasi

He explained that under the EPA, Ghana’s exports to the European market would be 100 per cent exempt from customs and other duties while exports from the EU to Ghana would enjoy 80 per cent exemption from similar duties and levies.

Mr Amparbeng was addressing the Volta Regional Delegates’ Conference of the PSWU in Ho, said under that trade arrangement Ghana would lose the bulk of its revenue from import duties on goods from the European Union (EU).

He said the Ghanaian market would also be flooded with very cheap goods from the EU which would result in the collapse of Ghanaian industries and unemployment.

He said if the EU meant well for Ghana and its trading partners in Africa the EU should revisit Cotonou 2 and allow bananas, yams and poultry from Ghana and Africa into its market to stimulate economic activities and employment generation.

Mr Amparbeng called on organized labour to pressurize government to refrain from signing the agreement because government might cave in to pressures from the EU and its proxies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to sign the agreement.

He said organized labour in the EU countries had played useful roles in bailing out their governments from acceding to arrangements which they deemed detrimental to their economic interests.

A statement issued from the Office of the Ex-President described claims by Mr. and Mrs. Princen that he (Rawlings) has “six” children and is a “drug user” as “unfounded, baseless, malicious and a smear on medically and scientifically established processes; as are actions of a section of the media.”

“We wish to state categorically that President Rawlings is not and has never been a drug user and…President Rawlings has four not six children as claimed by Mr. and Mrs. Princen, a fact that is well known and within the public domain,” the statement said.

Angered by the Wikileaks’ exposé, the former president is said to have instructed his legal counsel to take due note and act accordingly.

Read below the full statement from Former President Rawlings.

RESPONSE TO WIKILEAKS ALLEGATIONS

The attention of the Office of President Rawlings has been drawn to a series of leaked diplomatic cables purported to originate from the United States Embassy.

We have taken particular note of a cable reporting a supposed meeting in 1997 between His Excellency Jerry John Rawlings and the then outgoing Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Hein Princen and his wife.

We wish to state categorically that President Rawlings is not and has never been a drug user and this office takes particular offence to attempts to mar the character and reputation of President Rawlings who dutifully served as the Head of State of Ghana for 19 years.

President Rawlings has four not six children as claimed by Mr. and Mrs. Princen, a fact that is well known and within the public domain.

The comments by Mr. and Mrs. Princen are unfounded, baseless, malicious and a smear on medically and scientifically established processes; as are actions of a section of the media and this office intends to see this matter through to its logical conclusion.

Third party users of the leaked cables are cautioned that the information therein is false, not privileged and can be the subject of libel and slander.

We have instructed our legal counsel to take due note and act accordingly

He is expected to reshuffle his Cabinet any moment from now. New faces are expected to be brought in to replace some of the popular ministers. The Chronicle newspaper can confirm on authority that three ministers and the National Security Coordinator, Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey (rtd), are on their way out of government.

Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister, and his Volta Regional counterpart, Joseph Amenowode, are to pack bag and baggage and depart the residencies in their respective regional capitals. Information gathered by the Chronicle indicates that the three, including the National Security Coordinator, have been affected by the yet to be announced Cabinet reshuffle.

In-depth investigations revealed that Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, who is at the center of foot soldiers agitations against President Mills because he is not a card-bearing member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), is being replaced by the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mr. Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, who once served as Deputy Finance Minister in the Rawlings regime.

Though Dr. Duffour is said to have satisfied the president with this performance, especially the way he has handled the oil imports brouhaha, which has led to stability in the retail price of petroleum products, in addition to the fall in inflation, but he is being removed from office, sources say, as a result of his ownership of Unibank. Quite recently, the private banking institution attracted publicity over government cheques mean for the Ambulance Service which could not be honoured.

In the case of the Northern Regional Minister, who is being replaced by his deputy, San Naasamu Asibigri, the Chronicle gathered that the President was dissatisfied with the way he was handling ethnic-based issues in the region. The paper also gathered that Mr. Joseph Amenewode is leaving the cabinet because President Mills is equally unhappy with the way he has handled party issues in the Volta Region. The Chronicle could, however, not gather much information as to why Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey is to be removed from office.

It is common knowledge though, that the Security co-ordinator is a Rawlings ‘boy’, and in this era, when the Founder of the party is not considered a Mills ally, the departure of Gbevlo-Lartey could not come as a major surprise. The former president has persistently been insulting the President publicly, which has led to a strained relationship between the two. Apart from these four ministers who are being shown the exit, The Chronicle also picked up information that other cabinet ministers would be removed from their current ministries to others. Ministers in this category are Hannah Tetteh, Minister of Trade and Industry and Mr. Martin Amidu, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, who took over from Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu, after the latter had been battered for a series of cases the government lost in court.

Before President Mills’ second cabinet reshuffle was announced late last year, there were rumours that Hannah Tetteh was going to be removed from the Trade and Industry Ministry, but she managed to scale through unscathed, but this time round, she may not be second time lucky. She may end up in another ministry, at best.

A former close confidante of the Rawlingses and one-time Special aide to the ex-president, Ambassador Smith contends that Mr Rawlings is silent over the matter because he wants to have his peace of mind.

“Former President Rawlings does not back what his wife is doing but because he wants peace in his house, he has no choice but to support her. It was not his intention for his wife to contest President Mills. I don’t think Rawlings is campaigning for his wife because I know him very well…,” he added.

Speaking in an interview with Alhassan Suhini on Radio Gold, an Accra-based commercial radio station, Ambassador Smith dismissed reports quoting Mr Rawlings as saying he (Smith) lied about his (Rawlings’) position concerning the former First Lady’s decision to run against President Mills.

According to him, the former President trusts him and can vouch for him for that reason; he (Rawlings) cannot label him a liar.

“Former President Rawlings cannot say I am telling lies because he trusts me. It is not true… probably, the newspaper just wants to propagate a personal agenda…,”he said.

However, Kofi Adams, spokesperson for Mr Rawlings discounted Victor Smiths’ claims saying the former President does not trust him (Victor) to tell him what he “feels” or his “secrets”.

Speaking on the same platform, Kofi Adams said; “I don’t know if he (Victor) has stopped being an ambassador and is now a soothsayer. Rawlings speaks clearly his mind when it comes to politics especially in relation to the party (NDC). So we are surprised that Victor can say that.”

When asked if the press statement released to debunk what Victor Smith was issued by the former President, Kofi Adams said: “The founder of the party does not issue statements, and moreover, we don’t have to wait for someone to tell us when to write a letter and when not to. If we feel something is wrong, we will come out with a letter and explain or clarify; and that is what we have done in Victor’s case.

He admitted that though the letter came from the Office of the Former President, it was not Mr Rawlings who penned down the words as contained in the letter.

She said at a press conference in Kumasi, whilst announcing her candidature, that failure on the part of both the NDC and NPP administrations to transform the country influenced her decision to contest the presidency and save Ghana.

Madam Donkor, who has never received any formal education, said the hardship in the country proved that better governance could not be provided by so-called scholars and graduates. “You put your trust and faith in the people who went to the big universities and who could speak English like white men but they fail you miserably. Now try me who is an illiterate and I will not disappoint you,” she stated.

The former assembly member for Heman Electoral Area in the Affigya Keabre District said Ghanaians should entrust the governance of the country into her care in 2012, promising to deliver to their satisfaction.

She said she would seek wisdom from God, the creator of mankind, so as to lead Ghana from its current deplorable state to a country where wealth and happiness would be the order of the day.

Madam Donkor, who has the ‘moon’ as her symbol, said Ghana had been in darkness for far too long due to wrong leadership skills portrayed by both the NDC and NPP, adding that she would bring the country back into the light through exemplary leadership skills.

According to her, both the NDC and NPP had over the years distributed the national resources to their party members and embarked on big campaigns to retain political power without paying attention to the challenges facing the masses.

Madam Donkor, whose party goes by the name ‘Obaatanpa’, to wit good mother, said she would make sure that the national cake was evenly distributed for the benefit of every Ghanaian. When elected as the first female president of the country, she said she would immediately lift the taxes on the importation of goods to enable people to import more goods.

According to her, all the monies being collected at the harbour usually landed in the pockets of individuals recruited to man those places, at the detriment of the country. She noted that she would stop the canker by making Ghana a free port state.

She promised to use monies realized from the country’s natural resources such as gold, timber, manganese and bauxite to develop education and provide good health infrastructures for the people.

Madam Donkor observed that journalists, despite their good works of reporting about what happens in society, had been neglected by the past governments. However she stated that her administration would assist media work to flourish.

“I will provide every media institution in Ghana with a brand new car so that they could travel to every corner of the country to report about the challenges facing the country so that it could be addressed.”

Asked if she had the financial wherewithal to embark on aggressive national campaign to win the presidency, Madam Dorkor answered in the affirmative, saying she was well prepared for the battle ahead.

Madam Donkor, who cannot speak English, said she would engage the services of a translator whenever she met foreign envoys, saying “even lawyers hire secretaries so there is nothing wrong if I hire a translator.”

As the assembly member for the Heman electoral area, Madam Akua Donkor used her own money to construct schools and provide potable drinking water. She even constructed water closet toilet facilities for the police at Mamponten, which was not part of her electoral area.