Reports revealed that a majority of children aged 10 years or younger are engaged in hazardous and physically demanding work in these fishing communities.

While the boys are forced to work on the Lake Volta even in unfavourable weather conditions, their female counterparts are seen completing most of the tasks onshore, keeping many away from school and denying them normal lives.

The Municipal Social Welfare and Community Development Officer, Mr Lambert Egblewogbe, told Citi News there have increasing cases of child abuse in the area with most of such children becoming school dropouts.

“The whole municipality, we have lakeside communities, the islands and then where we have the satellite markets where most of these children are used in the market and with others being used on the lake. The school enrolment here is not encouraging because if you get to market days you will see almost all the children more than 60% per cent in the market in school uniforms doing all these things” he lamented.

Known as the Child Protection Social Drive Campaign and with support from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, KOICA, USAID and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the initiative sought to drive and shift the attention of Ghanaians to the best practices for the development of their children.

The team was in Dambai to sensitize parents and opinion leaders on the need to protect the rights of the children and support their growth.

Hundreds of school children, mostly girls who participated in the event where empowered to report such abuses to relevant stakeholders in order to be rescued.

A play was also staged by the Centre for National Culture (CNC) from Ho to depict the menace and acquaint the public with the government’s Child and Family Welfare and Justice for Children policies.

The UNICEF Representative warned the students against mobile phone addictions and advised them to practice healthy relationships with the opposite sex.

She also advised parents to be responsible and not push their children into forced labour.

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By: King Nobert Akpabli/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Campaign against child labour launched in Krachi East appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The High Court, presided over by Justice Eric Baah, ruled that the petitioner failed to establish a case for cancellation of the results, and dismissed the petition on lack of merit.

According to the Court, though over voting, bribery and other electoral misconduct could be grounds for cancellation of election results, the law did not allow for annulment of the entire constituency results if the said over-voting would not affect the outcome of the election.

Justice Baah therefore charged the Electoral Commission to work on a statutory definition of over-voting ahead of the 2020 general elections, to assist the Court in expeditious handling of such cases, and also urged it to train its workers well in election conduct and management.

He awarded a cost of GHC25, 000.00 against the petitioner in the sum of GHC20,000.00 for the first respondent, and GHC5,000 for the second respondent, the Electoral Commission.

Earlier, counsels for the first and second respondents requested a cost of GHC70, 000.00 and GHC50,000.00 respectively.

The Petitioner, the NDC candidate in the 2016 Krachi East parliamentary elections, Wisdom Gidisu, prayed the court to cancel the parliamentary results of six polling stations in the Constituency on grounds of over-voting.

With the ruling, the current composition stays the same with 106 seats for the Minority and 169 for the Majority.

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana with files from GNA

The post Court throws out election petition against Krachi East MP appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Eastern Region was however noted to be the worst performing region, although in general, all 10 regions improved their scores significantly.

This District League Table is tabulated in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, UNICEF Ghana and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD Ghana).

It was introduced in 2014 as a social accountability tool that ranks Ghana’s 216 MMDAs by their level of development and service delivery.

Based on consultations with the Ministries and Agencies concerned, the District League Table uses indicators from 6 key sectors namely health, education, sanitation, water, governance and security – to compile a single score for each assembly.

The 2017 UNICEF District League Table report noted that Krachi East had a score of 50.6, indicating that the bottom score improved from 2016, when the lowest score of 40.9 was recorded by North Tongu.

“The national average score is 64.7, below which 102 Districts are found – this compares with an average of 58.9 last year,” the report noted.”

Despite the progress made, it added that “with an eventual target of a score of 100%, it is clear that the majority of Districts are still far from this goal.”

The full ranking can be viewed here

Tema Metropolitan Assembly on top

Once again, a district in the Greater Accra Region, the Tema Metropolitan Assembly, was the highest-ranked district with a score of 80.

The Tema Metropolitan Assembly overtook the La Nkwantanang-Madina Municipality which topped the 2016 UNICEF District League Table.

The Tema Metropolitan Assembly had previously topped the table in 2015.

According to the report, “almost half of the top 20 Districts are Municipalities or Metropolitans. However, several less well-off Districts that ranked much lower in previous years have risen to the top 20, such as Lawra in Upper West and Pusiga in Upper East.”

Improvement in sanitation

No district in Ghana has been certified as Open Defecation-Free, under the sanitation indicator.

Only about 4 percent of the districts in Ghana have over one-third of their communities free of open defecation.

But the report still noted sanitation as a “key area of improvement” as eight districts; Kumbungu, Mion, and Tatale Sanguli in Northern Region, Bawku West and Pusiga in Upper East, and Lambussie Karni, Nandom and Wa East in Upper West Region, have now managed to certify more than one-third of their communities as Open Defecation Free.

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

The post TMA tops 2017 District League Table, Krachi East last appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.