Forty billion cedis to finance School feeding project

Forty billion cedis is to be spent on the school feeding project from now until the end of the year. About 198,000 pupils in 500 first cycle schools throughout the country are expected to benefit from the programme, which was piloted last year.Mr Kwame Nuako, Director in charge of monitoring and evaluation at the School Feeding Programme, told the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday,He said an amount of three thousand cedis had been budgeted to provide one hot meal for each pupil on the programme.Mr Nuako said by the end of the last academic year, about 69,000 pupils from 200 schools nationwide had been fed by the programme. "That number has been increased to 141, 800 pupils from 380 schools at the beginning of the academic year, which started last week. "The number would hit 198, 000 pupils from 500 schools by end of the year and the Government would make available 40 billion cedis to cater for the programme from now till the end of the year"Mr Nuako explained that evaluation of the school-feeding programme for last academic year when it started indicated that it was responsible for an average of 25 per cent increase in school enrolment.He stated that the evaluation also revealed that retention and attendance rates were higher in schools on the feeding programme.Mr Nuako explained that as an added impetus, the programme was offering employment to more than 2,500 caterers engaged to cook for the 500 schools.He said the Programme Directors were working closely with beneficiary district assemblies and communities to sustain it."We are planning to expand the programme to meet Government's objective of making every school child happy and also there is a huge cry for the programme in areas where it has not reached yet." 27 Sept. 06

COCOBOD is ready for 2006/7 cocoa season – Chief Executive

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) on Wednesday said it had made adequate preparations to eliminate bottlenecks that might affect the smooth running of the 2006/7 major cocoa season, which opens in October 2006. Speaking at a press conference ahead of the celebration of Cocoa Producers Alliance (COPAL) Cocoa Day, Mr Isaac Osei, Chief Executive of COCOBOD, said 14 bales of jute sacks and twines, enough to allow Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) to purchase and bag about 300,000 tonnes of beans had been released. Last week, COCOBOD announced the signing of a trade finance facility agreement involving 810 million dollars to be used to finance cocoa purchases for the 2006/7 crop year. The money would be made available to LBCs as seed money for them to purchase cocoa during the new season. Mr Osei said the loan agreement would provide buyers "adequate cash flow" to make prompt payment for the produce from farmers. He said a 50,000 tonne-capacity warehouse at Tema would be inaugurated as part of measures to minimize congestion of cocoa beans at the country's ports. Similar facilities are being constructed at Takoradi. "In addition, we're using private warehouses to fill the gap. We're also going to manage the scheduling of truck arrivals to limit the pile-up," he said but quickly added “but that is not to say we’ll eliminate the problem completely”. Mr Osei said a significant portion of Ghana's cocoa trees were infected with swollen shoot disease. He said in pursuit of the policy to increase local processing of cocoa, COCOBOD had finalized negotiations with some major firms to grind the beans into semi-finished and finished products. One such company that would soon come on board is Afro Tropic with an installed processing capacity of 10,000 tonnes, according to Mr Osei. Others which are also expanding their processing capacity include Swiss confectionery giant, Barry Callebaut and the Cocoa Processing Company, both in Tema. Mr Osei put the current total domestic processing capacity at 285,000 tonnes. He said increased domestic consumption of cocoa products was being encouraged through celebrations such as the COPAL Cocoa Day as a means to sustain the industry. The day, which falls on October 1 every year, was instituted by the Cocoa Producers Alliance to promote the local processing and consumption of cocoa to boost consumption in member countries. This year's COPAL celebration would be marked at Sunyani on October 1 and would include activities such as a health walk, recognition of some farmers, fair and exhibition.

Lukewarm attitude of civil servants dampens good intentions

New Patriotic Party (NPP) youth activist has observed that the lukewarm attitude of some Civil Servants towards the implementation of government policies had militated against the good intentions of the programmes to improve the living conditions of the people. Mr Samuel Jinapor Abdulai mentioned for instance, the National Health Insurance Scheme, as one among a dozen of policies that the government had initiated to improve the health of the people. He lamented however that, bureaucratic tendencies at the implementation stages had become a source of concern to the government. Mr Abdulai, who is in the Northern Region to explain government policies and programmes to the people and find out issues affecting the party, made the observation at a media encounter in Tamale on Wednesday. He said the country needed a civil service, whose leaders were disciplined and visionary to move the country forward, even in spite of the harsh and unpleasant conditions under which they worked. He, therefore, called on the government to meet all challenges confronting the service by providing the needed logistics and improving the working conditions of the service to enhance productivity.
On the question of a Northern politician to bear the flag of the NPP in the 2004 general election, Mr Abdulai said, "The NPP has a democratic tradition". "It is for congress to determine who leads the party and the decision is devoid of any ethnic considerations. "The wisdom of congress would prevail and we must all be prepared to follow the choice of congress," he said. On the Millennium Change Account (MCA), the youth activist said the criteria used in selecting the beneficiary districts were not discriminatory. He explained that even though the Upper East and Upper West regions had been identified as poor and had potential in agricultural production, other regions might have comparative advantage over them. "It is government intention to support all regions in the country to harness its potentials to enhance national growth," he said. Mr Abdulai said the government would therefore, not shun its responsibility of ensuring that the two regions got their fair share of the national cake to exploit their potentials for the rapid development of the people.

Eric Osiakwan at Berkman

From: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1003

Eric Osiakwan at Berkman
Filed under: Africa, ICT4D, Berkman — Ethan @ 7:21 pm
Eric Osiakwan is a busy man. Near as I can tell, he’s one of the few people I know who has more job titles that I do. And since he’s been to twenty-five African nations in the past five years, he may be one of the unlucky few who spend more time on airplanes than I do. (Joking about this over coffee later, Eric acknowledges that his last girlfriend once told him, “If you like the airplane so much, why don’t you marry it?”)
I last ran into Eric in Grahamstown , South Africa , where he was speaking at the Highway Africa conference. As the executive secretary of AfrISPA (the African ISP operators’ association) and GISPA (the Ghana ISP association), he’s been hard at work on the issues surrounding the proposed EASSy cable, which will complete a fiber-optic link around the African content and, if all goes well, radically reduce the cost of connectivity.
What’s happened with EASSy so far has been pretty fascinating - at its onset, it looked like EASSy would follow the “closed consortium” model that’s helped keep West African bandwidth so expensive. Eric shows a slide that suggests that connectivity in US universities costs roughly $0.12 per kilobit per second of connectivity, while connectivity in West Africa is $8 per kbps - more expensive than satellite connectivity, or connectivity in Central or East Africa . Ironically, the introduction of a cable in west Africa - SAT-3 - hasn’t meaningfully dropped prices in many countries.
Eric describes two approaches to making SAT-3 more affordable. In Ghana and Nigeria , pressure from competitive ISPs strengthened by ISP associations has been able to “push back” on the consortium pricing. As a result, the same E1 circuit that costs $25,000 per month in South Africa costs $1,500 in Ghana . ISPs made satellite connectivity more affordable, forcing the SAT-3 providers to cut their costs much closer to the wholesale cost.
In Mauritius , they’re taking another approach - trying to make the argument at the government level that connectivity is an “essential facility” and using regulation to open access to the cable. Ghana , Nigeria and South Africa are rumored to be exploring this model as well.
The fear has been that the proposed East Africa cable - EASSy - would fall into the same economic traps as SAT-3. But something very interesting has happened around EASSy - a great deal of momentum has developed around the idea that EASSy should be “open access”, that any entity that wants to purchase connectivity from the cable should be able to at a reasonable price without undue restriction. There are forces suggesting that what’s most important is building the cable quickly, and that an open process is bound to be more complex and involved. But Eric and others have argued that the SAT-3 clearly screwed things up and that EASSy has to use a different model, even if it slows down construction.
Eric dreams of a cable where different entities can buy in via different models. In countries where it might be profitable to have access to a fiber cable, like Kenya , the cable should allow for private investment. In countries where private investment in the cable would be at least five years off, Eric sees the possibility of “stretch” funding - public/private partnership to help make private investment in infrastructure more reasonable. In other countries - Burundi , for instance - the cable needs to be treated as a social good, paid for by donors. Eric’s most radical idea is that we could increase African ownership of the cable by floating some ownership shares on regional stock markets, allowing individuals to own a piece of the cable as well.
The conversation broadened quickly into a discussion of communications on the continent, and how communication enables entrepreneurship. Eric suggested that top-down approaches to development miss some of the most exciting innovations on the continent, and that people would be well advised to watch new communication infrastructure in Africa to see what business models develop around it.
Asked about uniquely African innovations in telecoms, I offered four areas where I thought Africans were leading the rest of the world:
- Narrowband - innovative connectivity solutions that use very little bandwidth, like the Ghana “Javelin” project, or Fidonet nodes in Zimbabwe
- Localization - Translation of open source software into a wide variety of languages, especially through the help of organizations like Translate.org.za. Localization of software for challenging environments in projects like Ubuntu.
- Radio - Use of community radio for information dissemination, integration of data and radio in projects like Geekcorps Mali.
- Urban wifi, with huge wifi networks in Accra , Bamako and other African cities.
I wish Eric had an hour to work through his slides - his thinking on the topic is really strong, and I’m hoping he’ll take this dense slide deck and turn it into an article soon for everyone interested in this important project.
Possibly related posts (automagically generated):
· Eric Osiakwan at Berkman
· Eric Osiakwan at Berkman
· Berkman Center on our WSIS workshop

Asantehene Is Angry

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has condemned attempts by some people to link him with the cocaine scandal.

He has therefore, cautioned journalists, politicians and social commentators to desist from hiding behind democracy and the freedom of speech to persistently use the airwaves to question why the Justice Georgina Wood Committee did not invite him over the issue.

The Asantehene made the comments at a meeting with the Asanteman Council at Manhyia here on Monday, after a 10-day visit to Libya.

He questioned the basis for people trying to drag him into a crime for which he maintained innocence. "What country are we building where there is no respect for authority and the elderly?" he asked. Otumfuo Osei Tutu said that for some time now, he had been patiently taking the vilification but "the time has come for me to bite if such comments on radio and television continue."

He described the situation as an anti-Ashanti hate campaign which must be resisted.

He questioned the silence of the various paramount chiefs and other people in his jurisdiction over the adverse comments being made against Manhyia, especially in connection with the cocaine scandal.

He deplored the tribalistic tendencies taking over the Ghanaian society, with Ashantis as the main target. Making reference to past comments that an Ashanti could never become a President in Ghana, the Asantehene urged his people to shun politicians who are bent on sowing seeds of confusion in Asanteman, regardless of their political affiliation.

of confusion in Asanteman, regardless of their political affiliation.

He told the chiefs that he is monitoring them and if it is discovered that any of them is in league with politicians to bring the name of Manhyia into disrepute, that chief would have himself to blame.

Otumfuo briefed the council on his trip to Libya, announcing that Libya had decided to support Ghana to go into the mass cultivation of yellow maize for export. He advised the chiefs to make lands available so that Ashanti Region could take full advantage of the project to bring employment to the youth.

Source:
Ghanaian Times

Australian Witch Targets Ghanaians

A 49-year-old male Australian witch who turned teenage girls into sex slaves has turned his attention to Ghana.Robin Angas Fletcher finished an eight-year jail term in June, but has been living in a unit inside the walls of Ararat prison, in western Victoria, Australia, under an extended supervision order imposed by the Adult Parole Board.Fletcher challenged the conditions of the order, imposed under the Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act, in the Victorian Supreme Court. A judge ruled the Board was acting unlawfully by keeping Fletcher behind prison walls after he had completed his jail term.Fletcher was due for release earlier this year, but parole was refused after authorities discovered he engaged in "disturbing" correspondence with people in Ghana, West Africa.In an advertisement on a prisoner pen-pal site, he claimed to be a real witch and an occult and bondage and discipline master.Fletcher used hypnotism and mind-altering techniques to entice two 15-year-old girls into prostitution, sadomasochism and black magic.He was jailed in 1998 after pleading guilty to prostituting a child, sexual penetration, and indecent acts against a child aged under 16.

Suspect's b'day bash sends Police head home

The Police Administration has directed the Police Intelligence and Professional Standard Bureau (PIPS) and Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to investigate media reports of an alleged birthday party held by Kwabena Amaning, aka Tagor, a drug suspect, while in custody at the Ministries Police Station. The Police Divisional Commander, under which the Ministries Police Station falls, has also been asked to proceed on leave with immediate effect in order to pave the way for the investigations. A statement signed by , Director in Charge of Public Affairs, Superintendent of Police Mr David S. Eklu in Accra, said the investigations were to be supervised by Mr Paul Quaye, a Commissioner of Police and the Director General in charge of Strategic Direction and Monitoring. It said investigations would be conducted to ascertain whether champagne was brought to Tagor in cells, whether a party was organized in the cells and whether the Police regulations in respect of remand suspects were followed. The Police said any Police Officer found to have acted contrary to the Police regulations would be dealt with accordingly.