Day: March 18, 2024

The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Business School has launched the GIMPA Business School Alumni Network (GiBSAN) to mobilise students and graduates for professional growth, leadership and excellence.

Launched in the GIMPA GB Auditorium, GiBSAN has the slogan: ‘Connecting for Impact’.

The occasion also served as a homecoming to reunite the alumni and celebrate their fortunes and outstanding achievements.

Professor Ebenezer Adaku, Acting Dean, GIMPA Business School, said the School aimed at nurturing transformational leaders for the nation and the globe, adding that, forming partnership with the alumni was a strategic way to achieve that goal.

GiBSAN, he said, would foster lifelong learning by offering bespoke training programmes, conferences, faculty consultations, dissemination of annual research outputs, and many more.

He said doing so would enable the alumni to stay up to date on current trends in business and management to thrive in today’s disruptive environment.

He
said by leveraging the rare competences and exposure of the School’s alumni, ‘specific arrangements such as professional transition programmes, career counselling and guidance, mentoring, and GIMPA Business School Job Dashboard would be pursued to support the alumni so as to configure and supercharge their careers and businesses.’

GiBSAN would also create the avenue for networking through the School’s information hub, local and diasporan alumni communities and social media platforms, Prof Adaku noted.

He added that GiBSAN would serve as a platform for members to give back through volunteering and donations to help develop future leaders of tomorrow’s businesses and society and to perpetuate the cycle of excellence.

Professor Samuel K. Bonsu, the Rector of GIMPA, said the Institute, as part of its strategic plan, sought to rekindle old relationships and strengthen existing ones.

The establishment of GiBSAN, he said, was, therefore, in the right direction towards achieving GIMPA’s vision.

‘The alumni give
GIMPA its glory. We do not exist without you,’ he said, adding that more schools within the Institute would soon be launching their alumni networks.

Prof Bonsu urged GiBSAN members to serve as bridge across generations of students and be the spirit of GIMPA by connecting with other alumni.

He encouraged the alumni to contribute generously towards the GIMPA Endowment Fund to help alleviate the financial challenges of the Institute and its less privileged students.

Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfuor, the President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), who is an alumnus of the GIMPA Business School, said he owed much to the Institute, adding that, ‘I am where I am today due to the excellent coaching, I received from GIMPA.

‘I refer to GIMPA as my home because I spent most of my tertiary life here, so I am emotionally attached to this higher institution of excellence,’ Mr Dwumfuor said.

He said GiBSAN had much to offer Ghanaians in terms of ideas and opportunities, adding that, ‘I am also proud to be part of t
he initiative as I see it as an opportunity to give back to my alma mater.’

Mr Dwumfuor assured that the GJA was ready to collaborate with GIMPA to ensure that the objectives for setting up GiBSAN were achieved.

As part of the launch, there was a panel discussion on the theme: ‘Building Partnerships for Business and Leadership Excellence’.

Source: Ghana News Agency

MTN Ghana Foundation has held a career forum to educate students on Artificial Intelligence (Al) and its opportunities as part of efforts to get them ready for jobs in future.

About 50 students, who are beneficiaries of MTN Ghana’s Bright Scholarship Scheme pursuing science and engineering programmes at the University for Development Studies, were taken through jobs to expect in future and the required skills, among others.

Mr Robert Kuzoe, Executive Secretary, MTN Ghana Foundation, speaking during the event at UDS Campus in Tamale, said MTN was interested in the holistic development of the students hence the forum to ensure that they would be good leaders for future opportunities.

Mr Kuzoe said, ‘So, today, we came here with resource people to talk to them about other areas of interest. So, it is not only about the academics or lectures but trying to infuse other disciplines that can mould them for job readiness in future.’

He added that ‘As a brand, we do not deviate from our brand, MTN is an engineerin
g company. As such, we try to develop young students, people, who are passionate about the space, ICT, the digital, the Al, these are the future for our generations. We want to prepare them for tomorrow. By the time they walk out of the doors of this university, they are fully equipped and prepared for the digital space.’

He urged the students to make good use of the opportunity to lead in the future.

Miss Mukaramatu Seidu Harrison, a level 400 medical student and beneficiary of the MTN Bright Scholarship Scheme, who was part of the forum, said it was very educative, adding ‘We are in an Al world. So, you need to know how to build yourself more not only for the school aspect; you need to think outside the box.’

Another level 400 medical student and beneficiary of the MTN Bright Scholarship Scheme, who was also part of the forum, said Al was the face of the future, saying the lessons learnt at the forum would shape his focus for the future.

He said, ‘I learnt about Al, how to prepare ourselves for the futu
re, how to make ourselves employable. So, you do not have to always rely on the traditional way of learning or traditional method of doing things. You have to add value to yourself and adapt to the changes in the environment.’

Other beneficiaries commended MTN Ghana for initiating the Bright Scholarship Scheme among other social interventions, saying they were really changing lives in society.

Source: Ghana News Agency

By Stephen TADAHA

A 26-year-old man in Mbouda reportedly decapitated his father for failing to satisfy his hunger. The dreadful incident happened on the evening of Sunday, March 17, 2024, in the Lahtet neighborhood in the Mbouda subdivision of the West Region.

According to close sources, the murderer whose name we got as Kenne Arrold had reached their family compound, demanding food to eat from his 70-year-old father who was unable to grant his his request. The man in reaction, with the help of a machete, slaughtered his father Mr Supawo Lucas in the presence of a child who was the only witness.

Many suspect he did that under the influence of hard drugs given that Arrold is well known as a notorious drug consumer.

Mr Supawo Lucas’s body was later discovered in a pool of blood and taken to the mortuary of the Montchio hospital. The aged man was a primary school bus driver in Mbouda town, he leaves behind a wife and many children.

The culprit on his part is being detained by security forces.

Source: Came
roon News Agency

Madam Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Communications Minister, Monday, attributed the multiple undersea cable disruptions, which affected mobile and fixed data services nationwide to a force majeure.

A force majeure means an act of God.

She said the disruptions, which occurred on March 14, might have been caused by an under sea landslide in the Ivory Coast and Senegal.

The Mobile networks affected in Ghana are MTN and Telecel.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful gave the explanation on the floor of the House following a request by Mr Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu; and Madam Sarah AdwoaSafo, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Dome-Kwabenya, for the Minister to brief the House on the disruptions in mobile and fixed data services nationwide.

The Minister said in the early hours of 14th March, the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and the National Communications Authority (NCA) were notified of internet disruptions on the Telecel Network, while MTN
also alerted them that they were also experiencing a major loss of internet service.

She noted that investigations revealed that there had been multiple undersea cable disruptions that had affected Mobile Data and Fixed Data services nationwide on MTN and Telecel.

However, the AT network has not experienced any disruption.

She said the internet outage was deeply concerning, and had impacted several other countries across west Africa.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the country had six subsea cables with the first submarine fibre cable landed in Ghana by the SAT-3 consortium, which the Government of Ghana, through Ghana Telecom, was a member.

Until October 2023 Ghana had five Submarine Cable Providers -SAT-3, MainOne, WASS, Glo and ACE. Another cable from the Facebook/Meta led 2Africa consortium landed in November, 2023, but it would be live in the fourth quarter this year.

‘For clarity, this incident might have been caused by a landslide that had wiped out most of the fibre cables between Ghana and Europe that ha
d a landing station here,’ she stated.

She said a separate event in the Red Sea had cut fibres going around the other direction from Africa to Europe.

She explained that by chance, there were two cables that had been unaffected – Google/Equiano cable and Angola to Brazil cables.

Both could be reached by the current cable’s consortiums, but following the opposite direction.

However, these could not support the lost capacity with the same quality levels, and the same latency within a reasonable time.

On Risk Mitigating Measures by the NCA, the Minister said in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Communications Authority (NCA) engaged the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to assess their capacities and redundancies to submarine cable providers and ensure that they had the necessary environment to provide reliable services to all subscribers.

The NCA realised that the MNOs and Broadband Wireless Access Providers were connected to only one or two submarine cab
le providers.

In order to mitigate any risk from a national emergency point of view, the NCA issued directives to the MNOs and Surfline, in a letter dated 30th April, 2020, that the service providers should establish and maintain physical cable connections to at least three submarine cable providers operating in Ghana.

The Minister said the NCA also indicated in the directives that all redundant cable connections should be capable of being lighted within 24 hours in the event of an outage on their primary links, adding that all the MNOs complied.

On the way forward, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said all MNOs and ISPs would be required to establish connectivity with other sub marine cable providers that were not present in Ghana.

She mentioned that all international services providers should be obliged to connect additional undersea cables, satellite options, and terrestrial links through neighbouring countries.

That mixed infrastructure with adequate capacity was required to provide redundancy to Ghana’s internation
al connectivity.

She said the Government had also ensured that the national datacentre and internet gateway had redundancy and were functioning.

‘We will endeavour to seek and implement forward looking measures that will safeguard the use of and our adoption of digital solutions,’ Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said.

‘During this hard time of limited access to the internet we hope we can count on the patience and resilience of our people as we work assiduously to weather the storm. This too shall pass. It is possible!’

Meanwhile, the official statement issued Saturday by the NCA on the Internet disruptions said it would take some five weeks to fully restore normalcy in the operations.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Young Urban Women’s Movement (YUWM), an offshoot of Action-Aid Ghana, has called on the government to invest in women to accelerate the country’s development.

The call was made at an event to commemorate International Women’s Day.

The theme for the event was, ‘Inspire Inclusion, Invest in Women’.

While advising the government to invest in women, Patricia Acquah, Public Relations Officer, YUWM, who spoke to the GNA on the sidelines of the event, also advised young women in Ghana to grab opportunities to lead in every aspect of life.

‘Women should not think that they are not qualified. They should not push the men to go for it and tell themselves that they cannot do it. They should have the spirit of I can do and believe in themselves,’ she said.

Ms Acquah added that young ladies should also take every training opportunity to better themselves so that they could take higher positions in future.

Madam Salome Awuah Yeboah, Girl Child Education Officer, Ghana Education Service, Amasaman District, who was
the guest speaker, advised parents to make their children’s education a priority.

Madam Helen Quansah, Former Chairperson, YUWM, who moderated the programme said that women should see themselves as tools for development.

She advised women to take part in decision making activities in the church, homes, workplace and at the national scene.

Madam Vera Anzagira, Greater Accra, Volta and Oti Regional Programmes Manager, Action Aid Ghana, said the country must create the enabling environment for every woman to use her potential to the fullest.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, has updated Parliament on the status of the Malian Ambassador’s residence, which was among the structures demolished to pave way for the National Cathedral project at Ridge.

The Minister said there was an existing reciprocal exchange residential property between the governments of Ghana and Mali; indicating that the Government of Mali used the acquired building in Accra as the residence of the Ambassador.

Madam Botchwey made the disclosure in her response to a question by Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, who wanted to know if the relocation of the Malian Ambassador’s residence had been completed and how much it costed the Ghanaian taxpayer.

The Minister said since the Malian Embassy intended to redevelop the residency with approval from its Government, the Embassy decided to relocate the Ambassador to a new residence.

Eventually, the buildin
g was unoccupied and became dilapidated, she said.

‘While waiting for a response from their Capital for the redevelopment of the building, the Office of the President of the Republic issued a directive, which resulted in the demarcation of the land for the construction of the National Cathedral,’ she said.

‘The Government was, therefore, obliged to compensate the Embassy of Mali by facilitating the allocation of a piece of land at the Airport Residential Area in Accra as a replacement.’

The Malian Embassy paid for the administrative fees and other charges to the tune of GHS33,800.00 to the Lands Commission, Madam Botchwey said.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Ministry of National Security has held a stakeholders’ forum to collate inputs towards the review of the National Framework for Countering and Preventing Violent Extremism and Terrorism.

The three-day forum, which ended in Tamale with participants drawn from public institutions and civil society organisations in the Northern Region, was organised with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Australia and Germany.

The forum in Tamale was the first in a series of similar to be held in other regions of the country.

Mr Emmanuel Dadzie, Technical Director, National Security, speaking during the forum, said the review would shape the path of change for ‘Our security architecture placing us in a better position to secure the State against the threat of terrorism and violent extremism that was wreaking havoc in countries across the Sahel region and West Africa.’

Given that terrorism and violent extremism remain a major security threat confronting countries and Ghana’s location in a reg
ion currently designated as the epicentre of terrorism in the world, the Ministry of National Security in 2019, led the production of Ghana’s National Framework for Countering and Preventing Violent Extremism and Terrorism.

Since its launch in 2019, the National Framework for Countering and Preventing Violent Extremism and Terrorism has proven to be a useful document in enhancing the country’s counter-terrorism efforts.

However, the review of the document has become imperative for a number of reasons including the fact that the terrorist threat landscape in the West African region has undergone a significant evolution since the launch of the Framework.

Mr Dadzie said ‘At the time of the launch of the Framework, terrorist activities were largely concentrated in the Sahel region. Analysts, however, had begun observing a gradual southward drift of the threat from the Sahel region to Coastal West African States along the Gulf of Guinea.’

He said although the country had so far not recorded a terrorist attack,
the intensification of attacks in neighbouring countries particularly in areas proximal to Ghana’s northern frontier, shed ample light on the heightened risk for Ghana.

He said, ‘Against this backdrop, we cannot and should not be comfortable relying on a Framework, which was drawn at a time that the threat was relatively distant from our borders.’

Mr Dadzie said ‘This review process, therefore, affords us a golden opportunity to evaluate our successes and failures, and develop a deeper understanding of the robust measures that need to be taken going forward.’

Mr Sukhrob Khoshmukhamedov, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Ghana, pledged the commitment of UNDP to supporting the country’s efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism saying, ‘We consider youth and women as key stakeholders in development particularly through their role in preventing conflicts and promoting peace in Ghana.’

He said ‘This Framework should not overlook the critical economic, political, and social measures we need to engi
neer in order to assist in the fight against terrorism’ adding ‘Addressing issues of inequality, marginalisation of groups, access to education and health care, stimulating economic development in deprived communities, promoting inter-communal dialogue, enhancing religious tolerance, de-emphasising ethnic divisions and chieftaincy conflicts – these are necessary measures to the arsenal of security and intelligence resources needed.’

He said ‘In this regard, the UNDP stands ready to support Ghana in implementing these critical measures. UNDP will provide technical expertise, capacity-building support, and partnerships to address the underlying drivers of extremism.’

Madam Penny Dannis, Australia’s Deputy High Commissioner to Ghana expressed confidence that the review would lead to ‘A robust Framework that better positions Ghana to confront the security challenges she faces while fostering strong and inclusive communities, who find themselves at the forefront of the threat.’

Source: Ghana News Agency