Celebrated Ghanaian economist, Kwame Pianim has called for the dissolution of the recently inaugurated FX Developments Committee which is made up of 40 members.

He spoke to Umaru Sanda Amadu in an exclusive interview on the subject and other issues affecting the Ghanaian economy.

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Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah speaks on Point blank with Umaru Sanda Amadu on the government’s readiness to implement the Right to Information bill and the government’s performance since it assumed office in 2017.

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This is despite the initial assurance that a concrete announcement on the resolution of the impasse between the University and the Ministry of Health would be made by the end of last week.

[contextly_sidebar id=”zpsK2ssQPczSfI2Ot4EcySKxXOm3Rbp7″]The government has now said it is finalizing a framework on the management module for the running of the Medical Center.

This latest assurance, however did not come with any timelines.

A Deputy Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, early on told Citi News the tussle between the University of Ghana and the Ministry of Health had ended, and that the two parties had agreed on a plan to end the impasse.

But he now says the two sub-committees involved in the matter were unable to beat their deadlines last week.

“As late as Friday, we were still trying to conclude the framework for the next line of action. We, however, were not able to complete every little item on that list,” Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said to Citi News.

According to him, there were also legal considerations to be taken into account concerning when the contractor is supposed to hand over the project.

“… But for now, the bigger challenge is: how do we get this into use as soon as possible, and that is the other part with the University of Ghana itself. The subcommittees are almost done with their work. Once they complete a few outstanding issues and they escalate, and we have the sign-off, we would let the nation know… The timeline we were hoping to meet unfortunately we couldn’t meet it,” he said.

Background

The UG Medical Centre, which had its first phase completed was ready to commence operations after being inaugurated by former President John Mahama in after completion in November 2016.

The facility has been idle since the commissioning of its first phase in January 2017, because authorities of the University are at odds with the Health Ministry on who should manage the facility.

Whereas the University believes processes leading to the construction of the facility gives it a direct oversight role of the Medical Centre, the current Ministry of Health under the Akufo-Addo government thinks otherwise.

A Deputy Minister of Health, Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu, had earlier said government currently needed about $6 million to make the facility operational, and an additional $50 million to complete the phase two of the project.

In 2012, the government signed a contract with Messrs. Engineering and Development Consultant (EDC) of Israel to build the first phase of the facility.

The University of Legon designated 400 acres of land for the entire project.

About 800 personnel were said to be needed to get the facility fully operational.

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By: Caleb Kudah & Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Mr. Oppong Nkrumah revealed that, the two parties, have now agreed on a road-map, which will be announced later this week.

“That standoff [between the University of Ghana and the Ministry of Health], as I speak to you, is being resolved. Between the University and the Health Ministry, they have come to an agreement on a new management approach.”

The deputy minister added that, “before the end of this week, there will be an announcement on the way forward.”

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah stressed the need for rationalization process on not only the UG Medical Centre, but other medical facilities at various stages of completion that have been found to be lying idle or abandoned for various reasons.

He said the government was looking at the administrative coordination processes that went into these medical projects by different agencies.

“There is the bigger question of how we are rationalizing what various government agencies are doing. Even if you go beyond this specific hospitals matter, you find instances where multiple agencies are trying to do the same thing over and over again, where if the resources were put together and routed through a single agency, then you could have completion in some of them and get the results that you are looking for.”

But in the case of the University of Ghana Medical Centre, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah again assured that, “before the end of this week, they should come to a completion of that rationalization process, and be able to tell the nation, so it is going somewhere and once they are done, I am hopeful that they will tell all of us where they are.”

Background

The UG Medical Centre, which has its first phase completed and ready to commence operations, was inaugurated by former President John Mahama in 2016.

The facility has been idle since the commissioning of its first phase in January 2017, because authorities of the University are at odds with the Health Ministry on who should manage the facility.

Whereas the University believes processes leading to the construction of the facility gives it a direct oversight role of the Medical Centre, the current Ministry of Health under the Akufo-Addo government thinks otherwise.

A Deputy Minister of Health, Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu, had earlier said government currently needs about $6 million to make the facility operational, and an additional $50 million to complete the phase two of the project.

Fight for UG Medical centre

The immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ernest Aryeetey, has also charged the current university administration to fight to ensure that they have overall control of the Medical Centre.

“The University needs to stand up and fight for what is rightfully its property,” he noted in a Citi News interview.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah noted that, the two-year agreement with the United States of America to host the two Yemeni nationals, which ended on January 6, 2017,  did not outline an exit plan.

[contextly_sidebar id=”gdW6KLSPwf0ZdTJuczy4mS4X3iIH5YHm”]Furthermore, the cost of monitoring the two nationals was going to be borne by Ghana after the agreement ended.

These details were among what Mr. Oppong Nkrumah described as “strange” points in the agreement.

“…One of the things we found strange was that, it did not have an exit clause in it. Another thing we found strange is, it appears in this arrangement that, yes, the Americans were going to assist us in the first two years take care of them, but implicit in this agreement was that the Ghanaian taxpayer, and that’s what the previous administration agreed to, was going to be the one literally providing for their security management in this country.”

No benefits for Ghana

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah also said there were no apparent benefits to Ghana for hosting the two Yemeni nationals.

“You could also not find in this agreement what the government of Ghana or what the people of Ghana were gaining from this all together… You also don’t see why the entire enterprise was shrouded in secrecy,” he remarked on the contents of the agreement.

As it stands now, residuals from the financial support the government got from the US are currently catering for the security arrangement of the two.

The US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson has confirmed that US government no longer has any responsibilities towards the former Guantanamo Bay detainees after the deal expired.

Background

The two detainees Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, who were in detention for 14 years after being linked with terrorist group Al-Qaeda, were brought to Ghana in January 2016, for a period of two years.

But some seven months into their stay, in July 2016, they were granted refugee status in Ghana.

The following month, they were also granted special Ghanaian passports that will expire in August 2018.

Because of their refugee status, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, told Parliament that the government has no option of returning the former detainees to their home country.

The two Yemeni will also have to consent to being moved to a different country.

‘Incompetence from government’

The Akufo-Addo administration has stated that it was not aware of any these developments, though a Former Information Minister, Mahama Ayariga, described such claims as a show of incompetence.

He argued that the three sector agencies namely; the Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry and National Security had supervisory role over the former detainees “so if you [government] want to have a full picture, you would have gone to these three agencies to find out, and if you didn’t find anything on record, you would have [also] invited those who were occupying these offices for more details.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to Deputy Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the law does not make the administration of all aspects of Education before the tertiary level the mandate of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

[contextly_sidebar id=”9aXXF50PwMbPjNQHx6MGxuUAq6STGSoa”]He argued that the funding for Free SHS, which government describes as a scholarship, could be placed under the watch of the Secretariat, whist the GES maintains administrative control of other aspects of the progamme.

“This law does not say that exclusively all aspects of pre-tertiary education including it’s scholarship functions should be brought to the GES. That’s not the intention of the law. It’s more about the administration of the substantive programme, curriculum and other things. But the scholarship aspect over the years, has sat with the Secretariat,” he said on Eyewitness News on Thursday.

“We as an administration have only argued that to the extent that the funding part of Free SHS is a scholarship, it ought to sit with the Secretariat as well so they administer it.  If there are other parts like curriculum or enrollment, the GES and other organizations can handle them.”

‘Unlawful’

The Minority in Parliament had earlier described the move as illegal.

According to the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, the educational sector laws, specifically the Act governing the operations of the Ghana Education Service, have been breached with the allocation of GHc 1.2 billion to the Secretariat.

Haruna Iddrisu said the GES under the Ministry of Education should be responsible for the Free SHS allocation “if we are respecting the laws of Ghana.”

“The Scholarship Secretariat deals with scholarships. This [the Fre SHS policy], is a major government policy of providing bursaries to ensure free secondary education… the scholarship secretariat must focus on Cuban students, Ghanaians students in Moscow.”

This assertion has been dismissed by a former Ghana Education Service Director, Charles Aheto Tsegah, who said that the government has not erred by taking such a decision.

He explained that, the basis for which the government has taken this decision is to label the Free SHS money as a scholarship.

“By labeling it as a scholarship, it moves away from the Ministry of Education budget into the account or the budget of the office of government business where the Scholarship Secretariat is located,” Mr. Tsegah explained on Eyewitness News.

In his view, “within that context, it is right for the government to say that money is a scholarship money, and it will be handled and managed by the scholarship Secretariat.”

Scholarship Secretariat can handle Free SHS funds – Aheto Tsegah

A former Ghana Education Service Director, Charles Aheto Tsegah, sees nothing wrong with the decision.

In a Citi News interview, he explained that the basis for which the government has taken this decision is to label the Free SHS money as a scholarship.

“By labeling it as a scholarship, it moves away from the Ministry of Education budget into the account or the budget of the office of government business where the Scholarship Secretariat is located,” Mr. Tsegah explained on Eyewitness News.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Speaking on Eyewitness News on Thursday, the Deputy Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said that the government was committed to ensuring that beneficiaries of scholarships from the government receive what is due them.

[contextly_sidebar id=”FlCPOFIak9i7LEhRhVCZkpKwrGVyv0rE”]According to him,  the current administration had spent large sums on clearing the backlog of arrears that had built up over the years, and was hopeful that by the second part of 2018, all outstanding payments would have been made.

“The question of why stipends for beneficiaries of scholarships sometimes delay, is a question of funding of the Secretariat, and of the priorities of any particular administration,” Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said.

“We have in this fiscal year spent heavy amounts of money in clearing a lot of the arrears in the Secretariat because in previous years,  because a lot of people were being enrolled on scholarships, but government money was not adequate, people were put on and there was no money from the Secretariat.”

Scholarship or hardship?

Many concerns have been raised about the apparent neglect of Ghanaian students abroad who are beneficiaries of scholarships from the government.

The students consistently complain that they struggle to make ends meet due to delays and sometimes outright non-payment of allowance due them.

A Ghanaian student in Morocco told citifmonline.com in November that scholarship beneficiaries are supposed to get $250 dollars a month from the Ghana government for upkeep, which is the only money they have access to for living expenses, as they are not allowed to work, per their agreement with the Morocco government.

“The only source of income we have is the money that comes from the government of Ghana, which is $250 a month, and $300 for health allowance per year, and then the book allowance. So that is what we rely on, and when it doesn’t come, it puts us in this particular situation, ” one of the students said.

The students lamented that no support has come from the government since February 2017, a situation that is pushing them to the edge of desperation.

The situation is similar in other countries hosting Ghanaian scholarship beneficiaries, particularly Russia and Cuba.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that, the arrears had built up over the years because government at the time had approved persons for scholarships despite not making any budgetary allocations to them.

“We’ve been paying down a lot of those arrears and gradually trying to close that gap to ensure that once we have students there,  we budget adequately and pay for them. And we are expecting that hopefully by the middle of 2018 and on wards,  we will not have students under scholarships who don’t have budgetary allocations.”

The issue has been brought under the spotlight after government stated that it would allow the Scholarship Secretariat to administer the funds meant for the free Senior High School programme.

The Minority in Parliament, led by Haruna Iddrisu, have slammed this plan, stating that the Scholarship Secretariat should be left to focus on addressing the concerns of the stranded beneficiaries.

“The Scholarship Secretariat deals with scholarships. This [the Fre SHS policy], is a major government policy of providing bursaries to ensure free secondary education… the scholarship secretariat must focus on Cuban students, Ghanaians students in Moscow, ” Haruna Iddrisu said.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, stated that the government had promised to end ‘dumsor’ and had delivered, while presenting government’s budget and policy statement for 2018 in Parliament on Wednesday.

[contextly_sidebar id=”X1blbiXGQNnNCXKKZzlmyTQHHWDHsQfg”]This claim was widely criticized by members of the Minority who argued that the investments in the sector made under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration had stabilized the power situation well before the NPP came into office.

However, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, speaking on the Point Blank segment of Eyewitness News, stated that the previous government’s focus on increasing production capacity in the sector, though commendable, was not the primary reason for the end to the power crisis.

“I’ve not said that we give no credit to the previous administration for anything they did. What I’ve said is that, a lot of the gains we’ve chalked are principally because of the works we’ve done. Throughout the campaign of 2015 and 2016, we always said that the energy crisis was a financial crisis. We believed that there was enough production capacity to meet our needs. The reason for which some of those plants were not producing and meeting our needs were because there were debts owed them, there were crude oil financing needs that money was not being made available to finance. Our challenge wasn’t about having enough power plants but about having a viable financial solution to ensure that the plants we had were fired,” he said.

According to him, the problems in the sector were purely financial, which the new government had shown commitment to addressing since they took over, in terms of appointments and resource allocation.

“When Nana Akufo Addo named 110 Ministers, he was lambasted, but he has a deputy Minister responsible for financing the energy sector. His job is to ensure the regular stream of financing to ensure that our power plants were firing and giving us enough and excess because if you did the numbers at the time, we had enough capacity. It is our claim that pursuant to that strategy and making sure that the plants are liquid, that’s where we are today.”

‘We ended dumsor’

The Minority challenged a number of the statements made by Ken Ofori-Atta in Parliament, even raising cards with ‘419’ budget printed on them.

However,  his claim that the current administration had ended dumsor, earned the loudest jeers from the opposition.

The Minority Chief whip,  Mubarak Muntaka,  stated after the presentation of the budget in an interview with Citi News that “the most shocking and the most insincere comment of the Finance Minister was when he said they had ended dumsor.”

The Asawase legislator believes that contrary to Mr. Ofori Atta’s claims, the frequent power outages came to an end under the NDC’s tenure.

“You and I were in this country. Long before they came, Dumsor had ended. If you remember by January, February of 2016, there was no dumsor. All the things that he said they had added, just check. All the 445 megawatts that he is talking about adding, just check, when it was done.”

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The deputy Minister said the Minority was “pulling the figures from the air” rendering its assertions baseless.

[contextly_sidebar id=”mIqlfzSC46ei61tCNvBgve05XlyDL2et”]“The facts don’t support the narratives they [the Minority] are trying to put out,” Mr. Oppong Nkrumah stated on Eyewitness News.

The Minority at a press conference on Wednesday argued that there was some negligence on the part of the government because it did not follow investment advice from the International Monetary Fund, among others.

ESLA PLC, the independent special purpose vehicle sponsored by Ghana, pegged the bond at a B-stable rating, and the Minority contended that the government should have gone to the financial market on the strength of this rating, thus saving some 200 basis points that translated to GHc 1.2 million.

Because of this, the Minority is pushing for the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to be hauled before Parliament.

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah reminded that the government could have gotten us much as GHc 5.32 billion for the bond issue instead of the eventual GHc 4.7 which some have been described as unsuccessful.

“When the window was extended, we got a total of GHc 5.32 billion, but because of the interest rates, the government decided to settle on about 4.7 billion,” he said.

“A lot of the things our friends in the Minority come up with, sometimes you wonder where they are really getting these figures from, whether they are on their own coming up with these figures or whether the figures are the facts.”

The energy bond was issued to offset the legacy debts of the energy sector estimated at GHc 10 billion.

The seven-year component raked in GHc2.4 billion as targeted, at an interest rate of 19 percent.

However, the 10-year bond failed to hit the GHc 3.6 billion mark. It accrued some GHc 2.29 billion at an interest rate of 19.5 percent, meaning, the total amount received was about 22 percent less than the targeted GHc 6 billion.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonine.com/Ghana

The post Minority manufacturing figures in Energy Bond critique – Oppong Nkrumah appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The scholarship will supplement government’s newly launched Free Senior High School Education programme being enjoyed by the current first-year students in public second cycle institutions.

The Education and Skills Development Programme committee in the constituency received over 1000 applications, but 200 students from SHS Forms 2 and 3, Teacher and Nursing Training Colleges, Polytechnics and Universities sailed through the process to benefit from the scheme.

Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah advised the beneficiaries to live above reproach and stay focused to justify why they merited the scholarship.

“Through this initiative we hope to keep about 200 students every year in school starting from this year. To you who are beneficiaries don’t let me down, don’t let your parents down and don’t let the people of Ofoase-Ayirebi down,” Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah emphasised.

Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah expressed his gratitude to the District Assembly for its support in developing the constituency.

He noted that the collaboration between the local assembly and his office has also culminated in the provision of a mechanized borehole system with four tanks and a solar panel for residents of Akyem Akokoaso in the Ofoase-Ayirebi constituency.

“We are also in the process of facilitating the provision of over 3,000 electricity meters for many residents who were not captured in the first phase. 27 other communities will also receive electricity in the Electricity Extension Programme that will soon commence in the district,” the MP promised.

DCE hails Oppong- Nkrumah for his efforts

The District Chief Executive of the area,Paul Asamoah, hailed the MP for his dedication and fulfillment of his campaign promises, adding that the scholarship scheme “has taken away immense pressure” from him.

He assured the constituents the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government will deliver on its promises such as One Constituency One Million Dollars initiative, and One District One Factory Project.

Mr. Asamoah appealed to the government to help put up a hospital in the district since there is no major health facility to take care of emergencies.

“A district of 140,000 has no doctor. This is heart-wrenching. We are appealing to the government through the Ministry of Local Government to help us,” the DCE stressed.

Parents of beneficiaries express joy at the initiative

Parents of beneficiaries could not hide their joy, heaped praises on the MP for the timely intervention.

A parent said “I have been thinking of how to pay my son’s admission fees. I thank the MP for this gesture. It is very timely”.

Another parent explained that “ Most of us have been considering going for loans to enable us pay our children’s’ fees. The scholarship is a relief on my finances and that of several other households.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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