Day: May 9, 2024

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has promised to establish common-user processing facilities and equipment in the various mining districts across Ghana if elected as President, to promote responsible and sustainable mining practices.

Dr Bawumia made the pledge during the Third Annual Transformational Dialogue on Small-Scale Mining in Sunyani on Wednesday, organised by the University of Energy and Natural Resources.

The NPP Presidential Candidate emphasised the importance of ensuring that mining activities benefited the country in totality.

‘I will establish common-user processing facilities to facilitate mining in the various districts of the country,’ he said.

‘Additionally, we shall establish Community Environmental Protection Assistants working under the Minerals Commission/Environmental Protection Agency with river wardens and local authorities to augment the safeguarding of our environment/water bodies.’

Common-user processing facilities would help in achieving the envi
ronmental sustainability goal by providing efficient and environmentally friendly processing options for miners.

Those facilities would contribute to the fight against illegal mining activities, commonly known as ‘galamsey’, Dr Bawumia explained.

Dr Bawumia said mining should serve the collective good of the country and not just a selected few and, thus, emphasised the adoption of mining practices that prioritised environmental conservation and community well-being.

The NPP Flagbearer is on a nationwide campaign tour, lasting until the first week of June.

‘Bold Solutions for our Future,’ is the theme for his campaign, focusing on three key pillars: The battle of ideas and character, The Battle of Records, and The Battle of Effective Campaign.

His campaign team is focusing on issue-based electioneering, tackling cogent, practical and tailor-made ideas to deal with issues that are dear to the heart of the Ghanaian people.

Dr Bawumia is meeting a wide range of stakeholders, including traditional rulers, th
e Clergy, youth groups, traders, drivers, farmers and students, and interact with businesses and associations.

He has been visiting market centres and other public places to listen to the concerns of both traders and consumers.

Dr Bawumia also engaged the media, held town-hall meetings and continues with his regular stakeholder engagements with Ghanaians.

Since his election as the NPP Flagbearer on November 4, 2023, for the December 7, 2024 Election, he had been active in undertaking broad consultations and interactions with various groups across the country.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the next stage of Ghana’s digitalisation journey is to become the first blockchain-powered government in Africa to fight corruption.

The Blockchain technology is capable of identifying and discovering any changes in digital data to trace all transactions in the governance space.

That, he believed, would promote transparency and enable the Government to fight corruption in its entirety.

Vice President Bawumia announced this on Thursday at the 14th Regional Conference and Annual General Meeting of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa, in Accra.

The week-long conference is on the theme: ‘Strengthening Institutions and Promoting Transparency: A Means of Fighting Corruption in Commonwealth Africa’.

It attracted 20 Commonwealth African countries to deliberate on ways to make corruption unattractive on the continent and promote wealth creation.

Dr Bawumia highlighted some of the digital initiatives the Government had implemented since 2017, which were
yielding immense benefits for the nation.

For instance, the ghana.gov portal, a one-stop platform for paying public services electronically and enabled the government to collect GHc201 billion since 2020, was worth mentioning, he said.

With the digitalisation of passport application, he said applications increased from 347,000 to 752,000 recorded by the Passport Office while its revenues jumped from GHc12 million to GHc94 million between 2018 and 2023.

Additionally, the integration of the public sector databases through the use of GhanaCard enabled the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to expunge 29,000 ‘ghost’ pensioners from the public sector payroll and saving the nation GHC480 million annually.

Dr Bawumia said the use of unique identity card (GhanaCard) enabled the Government to detect 44,707 ghost names on the National Service Scheme payroll and saved the nation GHc356 million.

He entreated Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa to invest in digital forensics and tools to assist them to tra
ck, trace and distract the corruption value chain.

The anti-graft institutions in Africa must also acquire Customised Security Operation Centres to enable them to fight corruption networks.

The Vice President said Ghana could fight corruption more efficiently if the Central Bank finally introduced the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), otherwise known as the eCedi.

‘The eCedi will be our ultimate weapon in our fight against corruption because it will make it easy to track the movements of money and identify suspicious activities,’ he said.

It would also enable the Bank of Ghana to ensure high-level transparency, reduce the risk of fraud, tax avoidance and money laundering.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Regenerative Earth Foundation, a Non-governmental Organisation committed to improving the well-being of the citizenry, has empowered some selected Persons With Disabilities, (PWDs) across the country.

The beneficiaries are women with visual and hearing impairments, physically disabled, single mothers, young women, and women from rural areas.

They were trained in bead, rings, earrings, and necklaces making.

The craft training programme was designed to equip the beneficiaries with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to create beautiful handmade bead jewellery.

The NGO said it was motivated by its passion for bridging the social gap that had marginalised PWDs, to make them feel socially accepted.

The primary objective was to teach the participants to first see the greater value in the often-overlooked natural resources around them.

It was also to make them financially independent, instead of dangerously begging for alms in the streets, pavements, and walkways.

Arranged in collaboration with the Gha
na Federation of PWDs, Ms. Rachel Edogun, the Director of Operations, said although women and children were considered vulnerable in society, those with disabilities had more challenges.

They were typically maligned and discriminated against, therefore affecting their development.

She maintained that PWDs who qualified for a job should not be denied or sidelined due to their physical challenges.

Rather, they should be given equal opportunities like all other people, to work and make proper use of their skills.

Ms Edogun expressed gratitude to Mr. Daniil Landers, the Executive Director of the NGO and called for partnerships to enable them to reach out to more people to reflect the values of uplifting and empowering marginalised communities, particularly African women.

Ms Ayisha Fuseini, a beneficiary, was grateful for the programme, saying: ‘We learned new skills which will enable us to create products for sale.’

‘They even gave us jewellery and craft-making tools in addition to money as start-up funds f
or our business.

‘This will empower us to be more self-sufficient and take us off the street to beg fir alms. We have been uplifted to focus on our abilities rather than our that we could continue practicing,’ she said.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has embarked on a nationwide schools’ campaign, sensitising and encouraging female students in Senior High Schools and those in tertiary institutions to enlist into the Combat and Combat Supporting unit of the GAF after completion.

‘We want more women in the combat and combat supporting roles to increase. Over the years, women have been enlisted into the GAF but mostly they are found in the services support roles; such as nursing, in the kitchen field, stores field, and administrative positions, among others. But there is the need to rebrand women in the leadership positions in the GAF.

‘It is only through the combat and combat supporting unit of the GAF that women could gain leadership roles; the United Nations has found out that when it comes to peacekeeping it is always men domination,’ Col. Elvis Asamoah, Gender Adviser, General Headquarters International Peace Support Operations, has said.

He said the GAF was now speaking to female students, parents, guardians, teachers an
d the Ghana Education Service, as well as the public to understand that there was the need for them to inspire the female students to enlist into the combat and combat support units of the GAF.

‘There is no discrimination in in the GAF; so, this is for men and that is for women should be the thing of the past. It is an opportunity for all, and women should be forthcoming as the GAF does not have specific training for men and women or proscribe or limited roles for men and women.’

Col. Asamoah raised these concerns during a discussion with students of the Wa Senior High School as part of a nationwide schools’ campaign tour of the Upper West Region to help promote gender mainstreaming in the military.

The campaign has a slogan: ‘Join the Combat and the Combat Supporting unit. We have What it Takes to Conquer the Sky, We Have What it Takes to Command the Fleets and We Have What it Takes to Command the Troops.’

Col Asamoah, who is the head of a three-member team from the GAF and officials from the Kofi Annan
International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), is expected to take the campaign to eight Senior High and tertiary schools in the region with the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Students and Wa Senior High School being the first beneficiaries.

He urged the school authorities to help motivate the female students to study hard and score good grades to qualify them to gain admission into the tertiary institutions and come out to join the GAF.

He took the students through the various ranks in the GAF, and it became known that the current leadership roles in the GAF were male dominated, which he said would have changed if women were in the combat and combat support unit of the GAF.

‘We need to rebrand the GAF in the leadership role through the active involvement of women in the combat and combat supporting unit,’ he said, while advising the students not to pay money to people to join the GAF.

Senior Warrant Officer Logah Patience Abla of the GAF urged the students to
stop wasting their time on social media but to study hard to score good grades in their examinations to help brighten their future.

The Senior Warrant Officer who is also the Drill Sergeant Major of the Military Academic Training School advised the female students to crave for excellent in whatever they were doing so that the authorities could see the need to empower them.

Madam Kissiwaa Gyan, Programme Officer, Women Youth, Peace and Security Institute at the KAIPKC, took the students on gender and sex, gender equity and equality, and urged the students to put their minds to whatever they were doing to achieve their dream goals.

The Women Youth, Peace and Security Institute (WYPSI) of the KAIPTC is implementing the campaign with the GAF while the Elsie Initiative Fund of Canada is funding the campaign align with the government of Ghana’s commitment to the initiative for women in peace operations, a global effort to empower women in peacekeeping roles.

Source: Ghana News Agency