Day: June 19, 2023

Kidisil Sampson, a 24- year-old self-acclaimed Evangelist, has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for false pretence and stealing the property of Mr Mbatim Lala, a farmer at Kpassa in the Nkwanta North district.

Kidisil pleaded guilty to the crime and was convicted accordingly after having sex with a Senior High School (SHS) girl under the pretext of casting out the evil spirit in her in the Nkwanta South Municipality.

Prosecuting, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Mr Lawrence Wiafi, told the court presided over by Mr Joseph Evans Annan Okropa, that on June 5, the convict went to the farmer’s (Mbatim Lala) house at Kpassa to evangelise and in the process convinced him of delivering the complainant from some spiritual challenges.

The convict later requested the motorbike of the complainant to buy something from the town, which he obliged.

ASP Lawrence Wiafi said the convict never returned the motorbike and all efforts to trace his whereabouts proved futile.

He said the convict brought the motorbike from Kpassa to Nkwanta town, met the SHS girl of Nkwanta Community Day SHTS, and used the same modus operandum to lure the student to the place he was lodging for deliverance.

He narrated that the student then invited two of her colleagues to accompany her and in the house, the convict requested some privacy to enable him to attend to the victim, which they obliged to.

ASP Wiafi said a few minutes later they heard some unusual sound from the room, which was more than ordinary prayers with accompanying shouts from the victim asking the Evangelist to stop.

The two student escorts forcefully opened the door and saw the Evangelist having sexual intercourse with their colleague.

The students then reported the case to the Nkwanta Police with the motorbike owner also making a complaint against the convict.

The Prosecution said, on June 11, the convict was arrested by the Police and after investigations and prosecution was arraigned and convicted.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) is urging the Government to dedicate part of the funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme to support agriculture sector activities.

The Association said prioritising and supporting the sector with the needed funding would boost food production, enhance agro-processing and turn around the fortunes of the economy.

Mr. Wepia Addo Awal Adugwala, the President of PFAG, made the call at the opening of the 3rd National Policy on Agroecology forum in Accra to identify strategic policy directions and reform areas that are fundamental to accelerating and sustaining national food security.

The European Union and French Development Agency funded forum is seeking to strengthen livelihoods and build assets for farmers especially among small holder farmers, catalyse equitable growth by deepening and scaling agroecological practices.

The event was organised by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, under the ECOWAS Agroecology Program in West Africa (PAE) that aims at supporting agro ecological transition that reconciles economic performance, food security and strengthening of resilience.

Mr Adugwala said amid climate change impacts, economic difficulties and the surge in price of chemical fertilizer, the best alternative for the Government was to invest in revitalising the economy through agroecology farming practices.

He described agroecology as a farming technology involving traditional practices that built up the soil to retain more nutrients and water to support plant growth.

‘Due to the high cost of input, especially fertilizer, the expenses of an acre of maize averagely increased from GHS1700 in 2021 to GHS 5000 in 2022,’ he observed.

Mr Kingsley Kwasi Agyemang, the National Correspondent of the ECOWAS Agroecology in Ghana, said the adoption of agroecology practices could help ensure sustainable food production to feed the growing population.

He said it was one of the surest avenues to address the challenges of natural resource degradation, biodiversity loss and impact of climate change, including pests and diseases, erratic rainfall, flooding, and drought.

Mr Agyemang, who is also a Climate Change Expert at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, said agroecology method of farming was gaining acceptance as a science and a social movement, which promoted healthy, culturally appropriate and sustainable food production.

He stated that the ECOWAS Commission and the Government were collaborating to implement an initiative called ECOWAS Agroecology Programme to support farms in an agroecological transition to ensure food security, build resilience and protect nature.

Dr. Solomon Gyan Ansah, the Director of Crop Services at MoFA, said the Government was finalising an enhanced version of Planting for Food and Jobs to help access inputs at a reduced cost.

He stated that the programme would see a change from subsidy to input credit system thereby lowering the entry barrier to agriculture.

‘Prices of inputs and machinery constitute about 85 per cent of the total cost of production of a farmer. The previous subsidy programme was only taking care of 15 per cent of the total cost of production,’ he stated.

Participants were drawn from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Departments of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Centre for No-Till Agriculture, Ghana Agricultural Sector Investment Programme, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development and the media.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The 2023 Annual General Meetings of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) opened in Accra on Sunday, with speakers urging Governments to increase efforts to boost intra-African trade and regional integration.

That, the speakers said, would contribute to Africa’s recovery process, engender stable economic growth, create employment for its citizens, and reduce poverty on the continent.

The call comes in the face of the challenges arising from the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine crisis and other global conflicts and structural challenges of African economies.

The 2023 Afreximbank Annual Meetings (AAM2023), which ends on June 21, is also being held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the multilateral financial institution.

Dr Ernest Yedu Addison, Governor of the Bank of Ghana told the gathering that the time had come to reflect on how the continent could meaningfully contribute to Africa’s recovery process after the pandemic.

He stressed the need for economies to speed up intra-African trade and improve Africa’s trade performance in the global marketplace through the creation of a single market for goods and services.

Dr Addison said Africa must also promote industrial development through diversification and regional value chain development and the Continent.

He commended the Afreximbank for its support of African economies, and for the numerous interventions in infrastructural investments to support intra-African trade, agriculture and industry, trade facilitation, trade guarantee and advisory services, and country-specific programmes to support those in dire economic situations.

Mohamed Ahmed Maait, Minister of Finance of Egypt and Chairman of the Afreximbank Annual Meetings, who was represented by Gamal Negm, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, asked Africans to work collaboratively towards finding integrated solutions to the new challenges confronting the continent.

He was hopeful that the annual meetings would lead to more constructive solutions to Africa’s problems and described the Bank as one of the African institutions delivering on the African Union’s (AU) Vision 2063.

Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, remarked that the inclusion of a vision for an integrated African market in the founding treaty of the OAU, the founding fathers of the AU had foreseen the need for Afreximbank.

That vision, he said, had been grounded in the objective of the integration of African trade finance, and called for enhanced measures to eliminate trade barriers and increase access to trade finance for businesses.

‘If trade barriers were eliminated but there was no trade finance, all the efforts would come to nothing. At the same time, if trade finance was available but trade barriers persisted and prevented trade, then all the efforts would still have been wasted,’ he said.

Mahamadou Issoufou, former President of Niger, charged African governments to capitalise on having a considerable proportion of the world’s arable land to feed itself through agriculture and agro-industrialisation, which would lead to the creation of employment.

He commended Afreximbank for its support for the AfCFTA project, including the AfCFTA Adjustment Fund – aimed at helping countries to adapt to the pact and improve their ability to compete in the new trade regime for which the Bank had provided some $1 billion.

Issoufou made references to the Bank’s launch of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPPS) to allow for intra-African trade payments to be done in local currencies.

He also commended the Bank for the introduction of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF), a platform for exchange, which Africa needed to meet the demands of the AfCFTA.

The African Export-Import Bank is a Pan-African multilateral financial institution mandated to finance and promote intra-and extra-African trade.

At the end of 2022, Afreximbank’s total assets and guarantees stood at over US$31 billion, and its shareholder funds amounted to US$5.2 billion. The Bank disbursed more than US$86 billion between 2016 and 2022.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Ms. Phyllis Randall, Chair-At-Large of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, has revealed that many African-Americans not getting the opportunity to visit Africa anxiously want soil as souvenirs.

Ms. Randell revealed this when she led a 10-member delegation from Loudoun County to Ghana as part of a sister-city relation with the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA).

She said so many African-Americans in America just wanted to visit the continent as their ancestral home but were not getting the chance to do so.

The Chair-At-Large, who could not hide her excitement to be in Ghana, said: ‘And I will tell you, when I ask people what I should bring back to them, the majority of them say bring me back some soil from Africa; they wanted soil to feel a part of Africa.’

According to her, her husband, who would not allow her to visit Ghana alone, told him upon arrival that ‘the moment I step foot in Africa, I have fulfilled a life-time dream.’

Meanwhile, the TMA and Loudoun County have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the premises of the TMA to commence their lifelong sister-city relations.

The ceremony saw a colourful cultural display of some indigenous Ghanaian dances and songs, while a female pupil of the TMA Day Care Centre dressed in beautiful Kente cloth, gold traditional slippers, and beads on the neck, head, ankle, and knee handed over a bouquet of flowers to the leader of the delegation.

Members of the delegation, as part of the Ghanaian hospitality, were presented with Kente sashes and other gifts, which they reciprocated with a flag of Loudoun County and other gifts.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Mr Dzudzorli Gakpey, Member of Parliament (MP) for the Keta constituency, has joined hundreds of worshippers at the Anlo Afiadenyigba Evangelical Presbyterian Church, to thank God for victory in the NDC parliamentary primaries on May 13, 2023.

The MP also expressed gratitude to all members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), especially delegates in the constituency, for their unflinching support and the confidence reposed in him by itaining him as their parliamentary candidate.

‘First of all, I want to use this opportunity to thank the Almighty God for seeing me through another major milestone in my life.

‘I owe my victory to the Most High God – I’m also grateful to everyone in the constituency, especially you, our cherished delegates for honouring me by voting for me and giving me another opportunity to continue to represent our dear constituency as your Member of Parliament – I want to assure you all that you will not be disappointed,’ Mr Gakpey assured.

He called on all members of the NDC in the constituency and the larger population to support him and the NDC flagbearer, Mr John Dramani Mahama towards victory for the party in the 2024 general elections.

‘We need everyone on board the train to rally support for our flagbearer John Dramani Mahama and my humble self towards victory in the upcoming 2024 general elections and in our collective desires to see a better and prosperous Keta and Ghana as a whole,’ the MP said.

Madam Abla Dzifa Gomashie, MP for Ketu South, also joined the Keta MP alongside some executives and members of the NDC in Keta at the thanksgiving service which was held on the theme: ‘Reward for being obedient.’

Source: Ghana News Agency