Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Parliament resumes sitting

Page 14, May 25, 2010
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

PARLIAMENT will resume sitting for the Second Meeting of the Second Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Fourth Republic on Wednesday, May 26, 2010.
The meeting is expected to run till the end of July, 2010 during which bills such as the Criminal Offences Bill, Education (Amendment) Bill, Students Loan Trust Bill and Savannah Accelerated Development Authority Bill are expected to be considered by the House.
Bills which are at the various stages of their passage will also receive the attention of the House during the meeting. They include the Interstate Succession Bill, Property Right of Spouses Bill and the Right to Information Bill.
The Director of Public Affairs of Parliament, Mr Jones Kugblenu, told the Daily Graphic that a number of instruments, including the New Vehicle Numbers Registration Instrument would also be laid before the House during the period.
In addition, reports and some mining agreements are expected to be ratified by the House while questions which had been filed by a number of MPs would be answered by the respective sector ministers on the floor of Parliament.

340 cartons of 'chofi' destroyed

Page 20, May 24, 2010
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah, Nsawam
OFFICIALS of the Food and Drug Board (FDB) have destroyed 340 cartons of turkey tails which were seized from a cold store at Nsawam in the Akuapem South District of the Eastern Region.
Although at the time of the seizure, the products were in a state of decomposition, officials of the board told the Daily Graphic that they were being sold to wayside turkey tail sellers to be fried and sold to the unsuspecting general public.
The Nsawam community has become notorious for the selling of turkey tails, known in local parlance as chofi, the importation of which has been banned in the country.
The wayside sellers fry the commodity and sell them to passengers travelling to other parts of the region and beyond, especially during heavy traffic periods.
The Head of the Food Safety Unit of the FDB, Mr Sylvester Oteng Kyei, said even though the Ministry of Food and Agriculture had stopped issuing permits for the importation of turkey tails into the country since 1999, they were still being smuggled into the country either through unapproved routes or through misleading declaration of product contents at the approved points of entry.
At the Joyce Cold Store at Nsawam where the 340 cartons of the turkey products were seized for destruction, onlookers could not help but cover their noses because of the foul smell that emanated from the store.
One of the onlookers, Kofi Owusu, wondered why such a decomposed commodity could be sold, and called for more efforts to prevent turkey tails from getting to the Ghanaian market.
Mr Kyei, on the other hand told the Daily Graphic that the target of the FDB was to get to the bottom of the undercover importation of turkey tails into the country.
He said the board, through the assistance of other state agencies, was poised to use distributors whose goods had been seized to arrest the importers.
Mr Kyei explained that sanctions such as administrative charges would be slapped on the cold store owner to serve as a deterrent to others involved in such illegal trade.
Turkey tails are part of poultry products with a total fat content exceeding 15 per cent which have been banned.
The Head of Communications of the FDB, Mr James Lartey, therefore urged the general public to inform the law enforcement agencies to enable them to apprehend offenders.
“The FDB would like to strongly advise the consuming public to desist from patronising turkey tails and give information on any person known to be involved in the illegal importation of the said commodity”.
Mr Lartey gave the assurance that the FDB, in conjunction with the National Security, the Veterinary Services Directorate and the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service, would continue to intensify the inspection of all frozen food consignments prior to release, in order to curtail their release onto the market.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Minority challenges government on ex gratia

Frontpage, May 21, 2010
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE Minority in Parliament has challenged the government to cause the publication of the amount of money paid as ex gratia to each former Member of Parliament (MP) from both sides of the House.
In addition, the group said the publication of the names should also include former ministers and deputy ministers, with their signatures on the forms on which they appended their signatures, for Ghanaians to know who was paid what amount.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, in reaction to a front-page story in the Daily Graphic of May 12, 2010 which singled out Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu and four other NPP MPs for being overpaid their ex-gratia entitlements.
In that story, it was reported that the five had been ordered to refund the amount which constituted the overpayment.
“It is difficult to believe that such a report would emanate from the Auditor-General, for we believe he is capable of acting in a professional manner and would not push a purported preliminary finding to the press for publication,” the statement said.
It added that if any impropriety was detected in auditing, the person who was cited in the breach was first to be notified for his or her response, pointing out that in the case of the MPs mentioned in the said story, none had been notified up till now.
It explained that any payment or withdrawal from the Consolidated Fund, from which the gratuity was paid, was accompanied by a payment advice which provided a detailed analysis of the payment.
“In this regard, if under or overpayment is effected, there ought to be a basis of computation to establish the level of underpayment. Parliament has not been served the basis of the computation of the gratuity. None of the Minority MPs mentioned has been served any basis for computing the gratuity and the alleged resultant overpayment,” it noted.
The statement said since it was the President who finally authorised the payment of gratuity to former MPs and ministers, “if it was true that after all the fuss and ballyhoo about the gratuity what the President authorised to be paid is over and above what ought to have been paid, then what the President and the NDC administration have done amounts to nothing less than gross incompetence”.
It explained that interestingly, Mr Ernest Akubuor Debrah and Mr Samuel Obodai, some of the NPP MPs who were mentioned in the story for having been overpaid, had not even been paid the second instalment of their gratuity, even though it was being said that they had been overpaid by close to GH¢20,000 in just the first instalment.
It said since the Daily Graphic was the flagship of Ghanaian print journalism, the Minority would not want to believe that the paper would descend into the pit to do the bidding of the NDC.
“The paper ought to have discerned the mischievous intent behind the clamour to publish this otherwise puerile and diversionary piece. The plot was an amateurish prank which was born out of infantile gimmickry,” it added.
It stated that by now Ghanaians had recognised what had become the stock-in-trade of the NDC, adding that anytime the Minority organised a press conference, the government rushed to the press to introduce something new to divert the attention of the general public from the critical issues the Minority raised.
The statement called on the paper to unreservedly apologise to the Minority Leader, Mr Debrah, Mr Obodai, Mr Osei Ameyaw and Mr Christopher Addai who were all mentioned in the publication as having been overpaid.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Recall of MPs waste of resources — Minority

Page 13, May 20, 2010
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE Minority in Parliament has described the recent recall of Members of Parliament (MPs) to transact urgent parliamentary business under a special four-day sitting as “needless and a complete waste of national resources”.
“Prudence in the managing of the nation as the President insists to pursue, should mean that he would serve this nation well by ensuring that there is no recurrence of such needless meetings.”
A statement signed by the Minority Chief Whip, Mr Frederick Opare-Ansah, noted that despite several omissions in the procedures as required for the recall of Parliament, the Minority co-operated with their colleagues from the Majority side during the special sitting which took place from May 4 to May 7, 2010.
The statement indicated, however, that as required by the Standing Orders of the House all matters which were deliberated on during the period were referred to the various committees to determine the urgency of the matters referred to them.
“Noteworthy, in all of the referrals to the committees, all of which are chaired by NDC MPs, not a single matter was deemed urgent to be treated.”
It explained that all the committees were of the view that the matters referred to them could have waited and taken care of during the Second Meeting, which was already expected to commence on May 26, 2020.
The logical questions, according to the statement that arise, therefore were: Why did the government try to stampede Parliament to do its bidding; why did the government and those in charge of government business go to such great extent to keep the Minority MPs in the dark about the business to be transacted during the period and what was the government’s real motive for bringing Parliament back out of recess?.
The statement also faulted a Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah, for his lack of parliamentary procedures, explaining that if a matter was determined “urgent” by a parliamentary committee, it was taken through all the stages in one day.
“Indeed, there is a world of difference between speed and urgency,” the statement said, adding that “clearly, therefore, the special sitting of Parliament from May 4 to 7, 2010 was needless and complete waste of national resources.”
The statement also suggested that government business during the Second Meeting of the Second Session of the Fifth Parliament should be programmed in a manner that would permit better scrutiny and the conduct of more transparent due diligence in pursuit of a more accountable governance, “instead of crowding the last few days with multiples of agenda items as has become usual”.