The Task-Force is led by a Deputy Minister for Energy, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam Anta, and some of its members include the Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Hassan Tampuli, a Presidential Staffer, Clara Napaga Tia Sulemana, and Managing Director of Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Dr. Clifford Braimah.

The Task-Force has so far spent three-days in the Northern Region holding discussions with major stakeholders involving NPP regional executives.

The Task-Force among other major achievements, has succeeded in resolving the intra political stalemate between the embattled Karaga District Chief Executive, Alhassan Yabdow, the NPP constituency leadership, and scores of the youth there.

 The aggrieved parties in the end signed a communique dubbed, “Settlement of political dispute in the Karaga district.”

 The Karaga constituency NPP Council of Elders Chairman, Baba Abdulai, the constituency Chairman, Tahiru Zakaria and the District Chief Executive, Alhassan Yabdow were the signatories.

 They unreservedly apologized to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and the good people of Ghana for the untoward situation perpetuated by some disillusioned NPP youth in the area.

 They agreed to an amicable settlement of the political stalemate there, which earlier resulted into the locking up of the DCE’s office.

They resolved to peacefully co-exist and deepen their collaboration to develop the district with the anticipation to strengthen the NPP’s support base.

 They also vowed to make the NPP more attractive to its core members and floating voters, as a means of winning both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in the Karaga constituency at the 2020 polls.

 They further admonished all party loyalists there to renew their commitment to the values of the party, by using the appropriate internal conflict resolution mechanisms to resolve their future grievances.

 –

By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana 

The post Gov’t sets up task-force to deal with political vigilantism appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Pressure group, Occupy Ghana, revealed this in a statement after meeting with the newly sworn-in Auditor-General, Daniel Domelovo on Wednesday, January 11, 2016.

“The Auditor-General stated that, he intended to establish a special task-force to review all available, previous Audit Reports, and reveal instances where the powers of Disallowance and Surcharge may be applied as a first step to recover lost public funds from offending persons,” the statement added.

[contextly_sidebar id=”xgdIE51DMGGJbhg5a6qSVxTXvjei8Nje”]The pressure group has since November 2015, been on the neck of the Auditor General to recover about GHc40 billion state funds allegedly misappropriated by some public officials.

Several efforts by Occupy Ghana for the Auditor-General to retrieve the monies including initiating court proceedings, have failed to yield any positive result.

Meanwhile, the pressure group in the statement said it is optimistic about the current Auditor-General, and is ready to offer its support to him to succeed in recovering the monies.

“Although this is just one meeting, and although our previous meetings and engagements with the Government and the Auditor-General’s Department were frustrating and did not yield much, we are somehow optimistic that this initial engagement with the new Auditor-General will be a sign of great things to come with respect to Disallowance and Surcharges.”

“If the new Auditor-General is prepared to carry this through, we will pledge our unflinching support to help him achieve this goal,” the statement added.

Below is the full statement:

OCCUPYGHANA® MEETS WITH THE AUDITOR-GENERAL ON DISALLOWANCE AND SURCHARGE

It will be recalled that after months of unproductive engagement with the Auditor-General’s Department and the Government with respect to the demand by OccupyGhana® for the exercise of the powers of Disallowance and Surcharge under article 187 of the Constitution, and sections 18 and 19 of the Audit Service Act, OccupyGhana® was compelled to file an action in the Supreme Court against the Government.

The powers of Disallowance and Surcharge allow the Auditor-General to commence the recovery of public funds that are illegally spent or lost through negligence or misconduct.

These powers have never been exercised by the Auditor-General.

That matter is ripe for hearing.

However, yesterday, 11th January 2017, OccupyGhana® was invited to a meeting with the new Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo.

At that meeting, Mr. Domelevo expressed a desire, not for a continued court fight, but to work with us in the exercise of Disallowance and Surcharge powers.

It turns out that this Auditor-General so believes in the exercise of Disallowance and Surcharge powers by the Auditor-General, that he managed to get the Zambian Government to pass a law, the Public Audit Act, 2016 (No. 29 of 2016), sections 26 and 27 of which are a near-verbatim reproduction of sections 18 and 19 of Ghana’s Audit Service Act.

He bemoaned the fact that although Ghana has had such powerful and far-reaching provisions in both our Constitution and legislation, we have never implemented them, and audit reports have been reduced to a mere “journalistic report of events” with no teeth to bite. Meanwhile other countries were willing to accept those provisions and use them.

He revealed Malawi was also in the process of adopting similar provisions as part of its laws.

The Auditor-General stated that he intended to establish a special task force to review all available, previous Audit Reports, and reveal instances where the powers of Disallowance and Surcharge may be applied as a first step to recover lost public funds from offending persons.

Although this is just one meeting, and although our previous meetings and engagements with the Government and the Auditor-General’s Department were frustrating and did not yield much, we are somehow optimistic that this initial engagement with the new Auditor-General will be a sign of great things to come with respect to Disallowance and Surcharges.

OccupyGhana® will not rest until the day when the first Disallowances and Surcharges are issued by the Auditor-General.

Then we will commence pressure on the office of the Attorney-General to enforce those Surcharges and recover the lost funds. We are convinced that this will be a major way to plug the leakage and wastage in the public sector and ensure that public funds neither line individual pockets nor are treated with reckless abandon; but will be available for use to improve the lives of the citizens of Ghana.

If the new Auditor-General is prepared to carry this through, we will pledge our unflinching support to help him achieve this goal.

Yours, for God and Country,

OccupyGhana®

–

By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post New Auditor General to review audit reports – Occupy Ghana appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He made the call when he met with the religious leaders and other relevant stakeholders in the district, in a bid to ensure peace, before, during and after the elections.

The Chairman of the Taskforce, who is also the District Police Commander, DSP Benjamin Aniah, explained to the Imams the need for them to educate their congregants on the importance of peace, especially in the Northern Region.

‘’ I urge you to include in your sermons a message of peace, the need for peace because if your neighbour’s beard is on fire, you need to fetch water near your own. We have seen what conflict is, we saw it jumping over dead rotten bodies to pick other people, it was serious. Conflict is nothing good for us, the little thing that happened in this community, we all saw how it went. So please, let us have this message sent deep in our hearts so that we would send it across to people out there, and they will embrace peace so that the periods before, during and after elections, we will have total  peace for our brothers to conduct the elections’’.

He also called on media to be circumspect in their reportage, and the youth not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to foment trouble.

The Military Detachment Commander of the Ghana Armed Forces in Bimbilla, S/Sgt Peter Azumah, shared experiences he has had in areas like Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the effects of war to the participants, and urged them to work hard at maintaining the country’s peace.

At the end of the programme, some of the religious leaders told Citi News what they will do to ensure that there is peace, before during and after the elections.

“We have learnt a lot about election procedures and processes, especially things that have to do for  peace, before, during and after elections; and as  such we are encouraged to go and disseminate the message to our congregants to know about the essence of peace and things that we must do to avoid conflicts in our communities.”

Another Imam said, “We assured the security taskforce that the message of peace is going to be part of sermons on Fridays to educate the congregation on the essence of peace because it is peace that can bring about development. It is peace that can allow people to go about their businesses and it is peace that can even allow people to worship, if there is no peace you cannot stand to worship and that is why the religion itself teaches us to be peaceful’’.

The Taskforce was formed in April this year in the District, to deal with election related issues which are likely to spark violence in the area. It has since met with representatives all the political parties, traditional authorities and other stakeholders.

–

By: Mohammed Aminu M. Alabira/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Nanumba North: Imams urged to preach peace ahead of elections appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Citi News analysis shows that the water level in the dam has been reducing steadily over the past few months and may result in the shutting down of the plant or a massive draw down in output in the next two months if the current trend continues. The dam was designed to operate at a minimum water level of 240 feet. Operating the plant at levels below 240 feet has the potential of damaging the turbines.

The water level recorded Sunday August 17 was 243.73 feet. The water level was at 243.79 feet on Saturday August 16.

A close study of the trend in the depreciation of the water level indicates an average reduction level of 0.06 feet per day. At this rate, the water level will hit the 240.00 feet minimum in approximately 62 days.

CEO of the Volta River Authority, Ing. Kirk Koffi has however dispelled the fears. He told Citi News that even in 2007 when the water level went below 240 feet, the dam did not shut down. He said the worst that could happen in the event of a drastic fall in the water level will be a reduction in production capacity.

Akosombo is Ghana’s biggest power plant and has an installed capacity of 1020 megawatts but it is currently producing just about 775 megawatts, which is 76% of installed capacity declared. A total shut down would leave Ghana with only 538 megawatts of electricity which will be woefully inadequate to power the nation.

The Bui Dam faced a similar situation earlier this year when the water levels fell below the minimum operating level of 168 masl.

The Bui Power Authority said it had been over-drafting at the time, a situation that almost led to damage to the multimillion dollar project.

The Authority said in a statement that: “As a result of the Bui Reservoir reaching the minimum operating level, the rate of power generation at Bui Generating Station has been reduced in order to protect the turbines from potential damage. This is because it is imprudent to operate the generating plant below the minimum operating level of the reservoir (168 masl), as this unduly exposes the turbines to higher risks of damage.”

Ghana requires 500 watts/capita to take a significant step towards industrialization, equivalent to 12500 megawatts. This means Ghana msust invest about $14.5 billion in the power sector to meet it needs in the medium to long term. The Atuabo Gas Project is expected to provide lean gas to increase generation by 540 megawatts. However, the project will not readily make any major impact now because of production issues.

At the time of publication, engineers of the Volta River Authority were in a meeting and are expected to release a statement on the state of Ghana’s power generation in the coming days.

–

By: Kojo Akoto Boateng/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Power crisis to worsen: Akosombo level nears minimum appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.