Day: November 20, 2023

Mr Alfred Obeng-Boateng, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Constituency in the Western North Region, has organised a counselling seminar for the youth in his area to shape and guide them to become productive citizens.

A total of about 5,354 young people between the ages of 17 and 25 from Sefwi Bekwai, Anhwiaso and Bibiani zones attended the event under the theme: ‘Becoming a Great Person in Future.’

Speaking at the event, Mr Obeng Boateng said the youth were the country’s future leaders and they ought to demonstrate a responsible attitude and show that they could take up the mantle of leadership of the country.

The MP, who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Approchers Series Ghana, advised them to set great ambitions for themselves and work towards achieving them regardless of their background.

Mr Obeng-Boateng expressed the hope that organizing a series of such sessions by his office would achieve its vision of producing professionals and improve upon skills training fo
r the youth in the area to become more competitive in the job market.

He encouraged the youth who were interested in working at the mining firms to pursue programmes that could offer them the requisite skills to get opportunities at the mines.

On some of the development projects he had initiated in the area, the MP mentioned the ongoing construction of Adupri-Tanoso road, ongoing construction of e-learning centre at Anhwiaso, construction of 25 mechanised boreholes, classroom blocks, CHPS Compound, construction of toilet facilities, and financial assistance to brilliant but needy students among othe

He, therefore, gave the assurance that he would do everything in his capacity to bring more development interventions to benefit the youth in the area.

Some participants who spoke with Ghana News Agency (GNA) after the programme expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the MP for his commitment towards the welfare of youth in the area.

Some dignitaries that were present at the seminar were Mr Paul Andoh, the Mu
nicipal Chief Executive MCE for Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai, some New Patriotic Party Constituency executives, some religious and traditional authorities among others.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Iran, has rejected any involvement in the hijacking of a cargo ship, by Yemeni rebels in the Red Sea at the weekend.

Resistance groups make decisions based on their own interests, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, said at a press conference in Tehran on Monday.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Sunday, seized the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, and took the two dozen crew members hostage.

Iran supports the Houthis’ fight in their civil war with Yemen’s official government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia.

Iran and Israel are arch-rivals, with Tehran also supporting the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Houthis said they had hijacked the ship, due to Israel’s attacks in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israeli media reported the cargo ship, is operated by a company partly owned by British-Israeli businessman Rami Ungar.

The 190-metre-long freighter is used for transporting cars. It not an Israeli ship, nor are there Israeli citizens on board, according to the
Israeli government.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, held Iran directly responsible for the hijacking, and called it an act of Iranian terrorism.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7, with Hamas massacring some 1,200 people in Israel.

An air and ground offensive by Israel has killed some 13,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Nana Kofi Donkor II, the Chief of Agyiemadiem in the Juaboso District of the Western North Region, has begun a temporal reshaping of the deplorable Essakrom to Agyiemadiem road to make it motorable for residents.

The stretch which connects farming communities such as Dome, Afofiekrom, Maame Dora, Damoafuo, Sayereso and Agyiemadiem had been in a deplorable state, which made commuting within those areas difficult.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Nana Donkor II said the road had become so deplorable that residents who were mostly farmers were unable to transport their farm produce to nearby markets.

According to him, drivers had also stopped plying that stretch for fear of damaging their vehicles, hence his resolve to mobilize resources to shape the road temporarily to help make it easily accessible for the people in the area.

‘I cannot sit down unconcerned as a leader to watch my people suffer on this road because, one pregnant woman recently lost her life due to that fact that there was
no car readily available to take her to a nearby hospital,’ he said.

He, however, called on the government through the Juaboso District Assembly to expedite actions to permanently fix the road to ease the burden residents went through when plying the road.

Nana Donkor II said he had informed the District Chief Executive for Juaboso and the Member of Parliament for the area on the bad state of the road, and expressed the hope that they would collaborate to fix the road.

Some drivers and commuters who spoke to the GNA lauded the chief for the initiative, and however, called on the government to ensure the contractors working on the road were back to site to complete the project.

Reshape works from Dome, Sayereso and Agyiemadiem had been completed with works between Essakrom and Afofiekrom still ongoing as at the time the GNA visited the site.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Twenty-eight premature babies, have been transferred to Egypt from the Gaza Strip, to be taken to hospitals in Cairo and North Sinai, Al-Qahera News television reported.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said ambulances, departed on Monday from Gaza’s Emirati Hospital, carrying 28 premature infants to the Rafah crossing.

Footage on Al-Qahera News, showed each baby transferred into an incubator, then into an Egyptian ambulance. Minister of Health Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar oversaw the process.

On Sunday, 31 premature infants were taken from the besieged al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, and to the Emirati hospital in the southern part of the enclave, after two babies died before the evacuation.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), doctors in Gaza said all the babies are fighting serious infections, due to lack of medical supplies, and several were in critical condition.

None of the infants were accompanied by relatives, as the Palestinian Ministry of Health could not find close family members, WHO ad
ded.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Tobacco related illnesses account for three per cent of all deaths in the country, Dr Alex Kombat, Senior Revenue Officer of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has revealed.

They also cost the nation GHC 668 million every year, equivalent to 0.2 per cent of the annual growth domestic product.

‘Generally, people continue to consume these harmful products because they are addictive and not expensive enough,’ Dr Kombat said.

He said that the Government and the GRA had seen the need to put taxes on them to increase their prices to deter people from consuming it in large quantities.

Dr Kombat said there was the possibility of the Government using taxes to reduce the consumption of tobacco at the launching of Ghana’s 2023 Tobacco Industry Interference Index (TIII) Report, by VALD-Ghana at a stakeholders’ meeting in Accra.

Dr Kombat said over the years government had used policy control measures like excise taxes, customs duties, valued-added tax, National Health Insurance Levy, among others at entry points and
at domestic front to discourage consumption of these products.

However, the implementation of these policies had not been easy without interferences of industry players,’ he stated, adding that, Article Six of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control required that parties should implement tax policies to reduce tobacco consumption and help raise revenue.

He said ECOWAS directive on the harmonization of excise duties on tobacco products indicated that the excise duty on tobacco products should include an ad-valorem duty and a specific duty, however the implementation did not go well without a fight from the industry players.

He said the VALD-Ghana worked tirelessly through research and persistent meetings with the policymakers to ensure that this came to pass.

Subsequently, two bills were submitted to Parliament in this regard in December 2022 with the hope that they were going to be passed. Unfortunately, they were not passed in December 2022.

‘VALD kept pushing with several press conferences whic
h eventually saw the passing of the excise duty amendment bill into law on March 31, 2023, as an Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2023 (Act 1093) to amend the Principal Excise Duty Act 2014 (Act 878) to replace the first schedule,’ Dr Kombat stated.

There is a reduction in interference from 58 per cent to 56 per cent in public health policies from 2020-2021.

The report is to assist the health sector to up its game in reducing the tobacco industry interference in public health policies and it is in accordance with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Article 5.3 and its guidelines.

Mr Labram Musah, the Executive Director of Programmes of VALD-Ghana, who launched the report said the TIII stood as a critical assessment tool designed to scrutinize and quantify the various forms of interference perpetrated by the tobacco industry in public health policymaking.

Giving an overview, he stated that the tobacco industry interference (TII) was meticulously crafted to address the urgent need for monitoring and
evaluating the industry’s tactics and ensuring transparency in the decision-making process.

‘The TII scrutinizes a range of indicators to assess industry interference, including Industry participation in policy development, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, benefits to the tobacco industry, unnecessary interactions with the tobacco industry, transparency, conflict of Interest, and preventive measures,’ he pointed out.

The Report showed that tobacco control regulations in Ghana did not provide explicit provisions to curb the interference of the tobacco industry in policy development and that the Ministry of Health had delayed in developing the code of conduct, which is expected to provide clear guidelines for public officials in their dealings with the tobacco industry.

The rest were the invitation of the Harm Reduction Alliance, a tobacco industry allied organisation after they submitted a memo to the Chairman of the Committee on Defence and Interior of Parliament to be part of the stakehol
ders’ engagement on the Narcotics Control Bill.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Road crashes in Eastern Region have reduced from January to September this year as compared to last year.

About 1,090 crashes have been recorded from January to September as against 1,177 crashes recorded during same period in 2022.

Death toll within same period under review stood at 295 as compared to 324 in 2022 whiles 2,249 as against 2,377 injuries recorded in 2023 and 2022 respectively.

Miss Rosalyn Kukua Arthur, Eastern Regional Corporate Affairs Manager of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) disclosed in an interview with GNA.

She said the NRSA had intensified road safety and sensitisation programmes as Christmas approached to reduce accidents drastically and save lives.

She said as part of the activities her outfit and the Police MTTD would ensure implementation and enforcement of road safety standards and procedures to the latter.

She appealed to all road users including pedestrians and cyclists to adhere strictly to the road signs, road markings and speed limits to avoid loss of lives a
nd injuries.

Source: Ghana News Agency

A lifeless body of an unknown man has been found floating on the Volta Lake at Battorline, a suburb of Atimpoku in the Asuogyaman district of the Eastern region.

According to Mr George Mireku Asiamah, Operations Officer for NADMO at Asuogyaman, he received a distress call around 12 am in the night from a fisherman who was at the lakeside to fix his net and told him that he saw somebody trying to enter the lake as if to commit suicide.

‘When I turned on my torchlight, I noticed a man entering the river just as I was about to fix my net. I attempted to figure out why he was going into the water, but the more I tried, the deeper he went’

Mr Asiamah said in the morning, announcements were made in the neighbourhood and the body was seen floating on the water.

The NADMO, Environmental Health Department and the Police obtained a coroner’s form from the Senchi Magistrate Court and buried the body. Meanwhile, the Akosombo District Police Command is investigating the matter.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Reverend John Ngmalbini Kidisil, General Overseer of Dominating Power Ministry, Tamale has admonished Christians to anticipate God’s divine intervention despite challenges.

He said God was capable of changing any challenging situation in a believer’s life if they remained faithful and trust in His judgements.

He said, ‘As the year is gradually coming to an end, you may be wondering how certain dreams are going to be fulfilled but trust God for His divine intervention.’

Reverend Kidisil, win sermon to his congregation urged them to wholeheartedly believe in the promises of God to see its manifestation.

He emphasised that God does not operate outside of His words and promises, adding Christians must endeavour to always demonstrate absolute obedience to the voice of God.

He added that most of the challenges confronting Christians today were as result of their inability to see God as being able to rescue them from all of life’s tribulations.

He charged them to forsake their belief in earthly things and to
prioritise putting their hopes on things, which were above and eternal.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) has marked this year’s World Prematurity Day with a call on members of the public to support parents of preterm babies instead of mocking them.

Madam Victoria Agwiah, a Neonatal Nurse Specialist in-charge of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), TTH, who made the call at the event in Tamale, said ‘The public should cooperate with us because a mother, who has delivered a preterm baby, goes through a lot of stress. They should support that parent to be able to care for the baby. They should not mock them because those babies will grow to become what they want to become.’

Preterm babies are babies delivered before the 37th week of pregnancy, and they come with complications such as immature lungs, difficulty regulating body temperature, poor feeding and low weight gain.

The World Prematurity Day is marked on November 17, every year to raise awareness of preterm birth and the concerns of preterm babies and their families.

This year’s event was on the theme: ‘Small Actions, B
ig Impact: Immediate skin-to-skin care for every baby everywhere’.

The TTH’s event, supported by KEK Insurance, was also used to graduate 50 preterm babies from the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where they had been receiving care at the NICU for one year.

During the event, parents of preterm babies shared their experiences of taking care of their preterm babies and expressed gratitude to health staff at the TTH’s NICU for their care and dedication, which had helped to ensure that their children remained healthy.

On average, the TTH’s NICU receives 680 preterm babies every year, and within the past five years, it has recorded a significant improvement in their survival rate.

Madam Agwiah told parents of preterm babies to adhere to advice from health staff, saying ‘When you deliver a preterm baby, it is not a curse. There is still a way out for you. When you follow the lessons we give you, they can catch up because when they grow up to three months, they catch up with other babies. They will be ou
t of complications.’

Mr Musah Salifu, Director, Nursing Services, TTH encouraged parents of preterm babies not to despair and urged men, to support their wives, adding ‘They need the whole family’s support to be able to go through this experience.’

Pastor Whaley Asonre Aboungo, District Pastor at Seventh Day Adventist Church, Kaladan, Tamale, who is father of a preterm baby, said it was a difficult experience, which had its own challenges adding the experience had increased his faith in God.

He added that ‘It made me understand that as humans, you cannot declare somebody dead. It is only God who can decide who survives and who does not survive. At a point I thought my daughter would not survive, today I have a story to tell.’

Madam Fayudatu Yakubu, mother of a preterm baby, said giving birth to a preterm baby helped her to find her life’s purpose as she had started the Balmaisha Foundation to support other mothers, who had preterm babies.

Source: Ghana News Agency

WaterAid Ghana, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) focused organisation, has advocated significant involvement of youth and marginalised groups in efforts in accelerating access to improved WASH facilities and services at all levels.

It is barely seven years left for countries including Ghana to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, inclusive policies and programmes are therefore required to reflect and address issues of access to WASH by underserved people and communities.

Engaging the youth and the vulnerable including women and children would help increase participation, advocacy and development of home-based solutions to addressing challenges in the WASH sector and achieving the SDG six which puts emphasizes on attaining water and sanitation for all.

Ms Fauzia Aliu, the Acting Policy Advocacy, Campaigns and Research Manager, WaterAid Ghana made these recommendations at Anafobisi in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region during the commemoration of this year’s World Toilet Day.

T
he celebration was held with the subtheme, ‘accelerating change, clean the toilet: the role of the youth in WASH’.

As part of the celebration, the WASH focused organisation together with some youth groups and Water and Sanitation Management Teams in the district undertook clean up exercise at the Anafobisi Health Centre to improve sanitation situation for improve health outcomes.

The Acting Policy Advocacy, Campaigns and Research Manager explained that the youth had significant role in promoting sustainable development and underscored the urgent need to harness the potentials of the youth to advocate for better WASH service delivery at all levels.

Ms Aliu explained that the Ghana Sanitation Policy was currently under review and noted that apart from increasing financing to increase the provision of WASH infrastructure at institutions such as communities, healthcare and educational

facilities which was a bigger challenge, it was imperative for the reviewed policy to be inclusive and reflective of the WASH
challenges.

‘We would want the sanitation policy review to be as inclusive as possible to ensure that various marginalised groups’ interests are taken into consideration to ensure that the actions taken are reflective of the challenges on the ground.

‘We want to see a lot of women, youth and children engagement during the review process, and we also want the government to engage a lot with the communities to identify and come out with home-based solutions to maintain and sustain WASH facilities,’ she added.

Mr John Bosco Atampugre, Head of Anafobisi Health Centre, thanked WaterAid Ghana for their support over the years including the provision of incinerator and the capacity building training which had contributed to improving sanitation and infections prevention and control of the facility.

Mr Atampugre noted that the facility had a water closet toilet facility which was contributing to ensure good sanitation practices and appealed to stakeholders to ensure that every health facility had toilet to help im
prove quality of healthcare delivery.

Mr Jerry Nyaaba, Asaloko Community Youth Secretary and Secretary of Water and Sanitation Management Team, said good sanitation was critical to the growth of the community and appealed to the Bongo District Assembly to prioritise the provision of toilet facilities to communities to help fight open defecation.

He also appealed to the Assembly to institute and enforce monthly or quarterly general clean up exercises in every community to help instill the values of communal labour and sanitation practices in the residents to help prevent diseases.

Source: Ghana News Agency