This comes after the several petitions from the student leadership over the matter.

The management of the school earlier in 2017 imposed the ban supposedly because students were misusing sockets in the various lecture halls.

Among the reasons cited for the imposition of the ban was the lack of concentration by students who fidget with their phones and laptops while lecturers were ongoing.

The General Secretary of the Students Representative Council of GIJ, Nathaniel Alpha, in a statement announcing the decision by management on January 28, 2018, said, the lifting of the ban takes immediate effect.

Some students of the school have had their mobile phones and laptops seized by school authorities for flouting the ban when it was in force. They often had to go through tedious administrative processes before retrieving their devices.

Many students complained that the ban was regressive and negatively impacted on their academic work. However, the complaints did not yield positive results.

Nathaniel Alpha said, “The SRC President, aware of the seriousness of the issue, forwarded these concerns to the Governing Council of the Institute, and made submissions at Council sittings to this effect… after several days, weeks and months of petitions, letters, meetings and the deployment of various advocacy techniques, management backed by a decision of the school’s Governing Council; which the SRC President is a member of, has revoked this decision.”

While noting that all electrical sockets were being reconnected to enable students use them, he urged the student populace to “handle the sockets well.”

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By: Farida Yusif/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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In an interview, Mr John Agbeko, Registrar at the Births and Deaths outfit, explained that local names like “Nana, Nii and Togbe” are most used as stool names and title for leaders in the traditional setup.

[contextly_sidebar id=”8GfQikR8OtMzCbwpkl9GKDhlhKooFvX2″]According to him, parents choose these names (titles) to honour relatives who have played vital roles in their lives and do not want their names to be missing from their family.

Mr Agbeko suggested that such titles that the registry does not accept as part of names should only be used in the house and the community and not add them to name for birth registration.

He said “if we allow ourselves as a nation to give names the way we want because it is us who have got the child and we will want to name the child the way we want, there will come a time that we will have wonderful names in Ghana. So it is just a control measure to make sure that there are moderating factor on us citizens to direct how our naming should go.”

The Registrar pointed out that it is not the case that his outfit is against only the local names (title) because it does not accept the English ones either as that is how their system operates.

“Nobody is against a local name. The only difference is that I have a baby and I want to name this baby by giving a name like for example where I come from, you have Dzibgordi, which is Patience and also using Mabel and you want to make Dzibgordi the first name, by our operations we tell you this cannot occupy the first name but Dzibgordi can be in the middle name to have Mabel Dzibgordi Abgeko,”he explained.

He further explained that “if you still want the Dzibgordi, then you can leave Mabel and we will use Dzibgordi for you as your first name but because we are English-speaking people, if you take Mabel and Dzibgordi together I do not know how it will look on paper if we do Dzibgordi Mabel Abgeko.”

But the registrar said they are not imposing names on people but just upholding measure and suggested that as a nation if Ghanaians prefer these names they can declassify and rectify them to be used.

“We can have names like Togbe without linking it to titles or stools. That is fine but it will degrade reverence that goes with a title name. Children who are not even one will have title name. It will not change anything from anybody or individual. It will take a lot from the society together as a collective as we start calling babies with titles names,” he said.

In an interview, some parents whose children were affected by the measure of the Registry told the Daily Heritage that they did not name their children after anybody but the registry simply rejected names like Nana, Nii, Naa, Nyhira, Dromo, Dzormo, and Junior from names they presented without explaining anything to them.

Mr Kojo Antoh, a parent said “the registry did not register my son’s name as Nyhiraba because according to them, it is not recognised and that it is just a prefix. When we are being advised to accept local names and use them, the registry is rather preventing us from using them.”

Madam Rose Mensah also told the paper that the change of name has affected her document because right from childhood she was using ‘Naa’ as part of her name but when she went in for her birth certificate ‘Naa’ has been taken off and was told to use only the name accepted by the registry.

‘Blacklists on the use of indigenous names‘

The Births and Deaths Registry of Ghana encouraged people to use indigenous names, but is still adamant on the use of those which it says are just titles.

There have been a lot of complaints from people who say that whenever they try to add traditional titles like Nana, Torgbui, Nii, Maame, etc. to the names of their children, the Registry said that it was not permissible by law.

Adults who were using those names had to swear affidavits at the Commissioner of Oaths to have them changed.

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Source: Daily Heritage

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The government says the ban will help protect the environment.

But manufacturers of the bags have argued that 80,000 jobs could be lost.

A court on Friday rejected a challenge to the ban. Kenyans are estimated to use 24 million bags a month.

A number of other African countries have outlawed plastic carrier bags, including South Africa, Rwanda and Eritrea.

This is the third attempt in the past 10 years to ban plastic bags in Kenya.

The BBC’s Anne Soy in Nairobi says that so far many Kenyans appear to support the ban.

But there is also some uncertainty about how consumers will adjust to life without polythene bags, which are usually given free-of-charge at retail outlets.

Travellers coming into Kenya with duty-free plastic shop bags will be required to leave them at the airport under the new rules, the National Environmental and Management Authority has said.

The government gave a six-month window for adjustment which expired on Sunday night.

Manufacturers who use polythene to wrap products are exempted from the ban.

Most traders have been caught off-guard despite the phased introduction of the ban, The Standard reported.

A spot check carried out by the newspaper revealed that most small-scale traders in Nairobi’s Muthurwa market had not obtained alternative packaging materials.

In its ruling last week the High Court dismissed a case filed by two plastic bags importers urging it to drop the ban. The court ruled that environmental concerns were more important than commercial interests.

Research in Europe has shown that a paper bag must be used three times to compensate for the larger amount of carbon used in manufacturing and transporting it.

Likewise a plastic “bag for life” must be used four times, and a cotton bag must be used 131 times.

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Source: BBC

The post Kenya plastic bag ban comes into force after years of delays appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He believes the ban is unfair, and thus will challenge it on Monday, June 5, 2017.

[contextly_sidebar id=”1jwUIC3NJfl1BiqTfqYd2PkRpLcKd0LH”]The lawyer, who confirmed to Citi News that he had been banned by the council, did not state why the decision was taken against him.

Some reports say the council took the decision after it found him guilty of professional misconduct. The specific offence is yet to be known.

But he said his appeal will capture details of the action and tackle the claims of the General Legal Council.

Lawyer Francis Xavier-Sosu  is a famed human rights lawyer who is credited with helping many wrongfully jailed Ghanaians gain their freedom especially through  the government’s special program, ‘Justice For All’.

He is a known member of the opposition  National Democratic C0ngress (NDC), who contested in the Madina parliamentary primary to lead the NDC in 2016 elections, but lost to the then incumbent MP, Alhaji Sorogho.

In 2016 whiles his party, the NDC was in power, he ensured the release of a man who had been wrongfully jailed for attempting to kill the then President, John Mahama at his church.

The man, Charles Antwi, was finally diagnosed to be mentally unstable, and the lawyer who had described his incarceration as a miscarriage of justice, ensured his release.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post I’ll appeal my ban – Francis Xavier Sosu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.