The Ghana Tourists Board (GTB) in collaboration with Adom FM a local radio station in Tema will on Sunday, February 14th, organize a special chocolate dinner for selected couples in Accra.
The organization would also organize a beach jam at Kokrobite from 6am to 6pm on the day to climax the celebration of the National Chocolate Day marked every 14th February which is also St Valentine’s Day.
Mr Ben Ohene-Ayeh, Public Relations Manager at the Ghana Tourists Board said with support from the Ministry of Tourism, the Board was reviving the celebration of National Chocolate day to promote the consumption of locally made chocolate and encourage the use of chocolate as the main gift for lovers on St. Valentines Day.
“We want to make the National Chocolate Day event part of the tourism calendar in Ghana,” he added.
He said, to inculcate the habit of eating chocolate in children the GTB will this year involve school children in the celebration of National Chocolate Day.
“This year we have selected two deprived schools in Anyaa and Adentan, all suburbs of Accra to visit places like the Cocoa Processing Factory at Tema, The Tetteh Quarhsie’s Cocoa farm at Mampong-Akwapim and the Bunso Cocoa Research Institute at Tafo all in the Eastern Region,” he added.
Mr Ohene-Ayeh said selected Night Clubs and Drinking bars throughout the country would also organize musical jams were various cocoa-based products would be given to patrons as prizes.
Commenting the need to promote the consumption of chocolate, he said chocolate contained anti-bacterial agents that fight tooth decay as well as helps in lowering cholesterol, preventing blood clot and reduces stress.
Apart from the above, cocoa has a lot of social and economic benefits, he said, pointing out that over 3 million people earn a living through cocoa.
Mr Ohene-Ayeh called on the public to patronize the various events to ensure that chocolate becomes part of a healthy Ghanaian diet.
Hannah Asomaning
Stakeholders in the Water and Sanitation sectors on Friday expressed support for the proposed 20 percent tax on packaged water
At a workshop to discuss government’s budgetary allocation for the sector, participants agreed that there was the need for more funding in the sector to enable them provide efficient water and sanitation services to all people.
Mr Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, General Manager, Communications at Aqua Vitens Rand Limited, Operators of Ghana Water Company Limited, suggested that the tax should not only be on bottled water but also on sachet water since the latter was produced more and caused more environmental problems.
He said some percentage of the tax should be used for development in the water and sanitation sectors to ensure better provision of services.
Mr Sakyi-Addo pointed out that the water sector especially needed more investment in terms of infrastructure and equipment, and stressed that there was the need for increased funding in the sector.
Other participants at the workshop agreed that the tax should be implemented and some even suggested that a greater chunk of monies accrued from such taxes should be used mainly for development in the water sector.
The workshop was organized by GrassRoots Africa, a non governmental organization that advocates for improved water and sanitation services especially in rural areas to discuss possible funding options for development in the sector.
Mr Rudolf Amego-Etego, Executive Director of GrassRoots Africa said the lack of money in the sector was the biggest obstacle that hindered the implementation of policies that could help Ghana achieved improved services in the water and sanitation sectors.
The Water and Sanitation sector is the pivot of development, he added.
Hannah Asomaning
Stakeholders within the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sector on Friday agreed that government needs to increase annual budget for the sector since it is the pivot of all development programmes.
Mr Rudolf Amenga-Etego, Executive Director of GrassRoots Africa, a non governmental organization that advocates for improved water and sanitation services especially in rural areas, suggested that 1.5 percent of government’s annual budget should be dedicated to improving Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services
Speaking at a day’s workshop to discuss Government’s budgetary allocation for Water and Sanitation issues, he said about 1.4 billion people will require improved sanitation services in Africa to facilitate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal on water and sanitation.
The workshop was attended by members of the civil society organizations, non governmental organizations, staff of GWCL and AVRL and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA)
“In Ghana, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) requires about 100 million dollars per year to invest in infrastructure development alone,” he added.
Mr Amenga-Etego identified the lack of money as the biggest obstacle that hindered the implementation of policies that could help Ghana achieved improved services in the water and sanitation sectors.
He admitted that investment in the sector had seen a slight increase; however, he said water was a high investment sector and the development of the water sector was a crucial one for government since water is a basic necessity.
Suggesting alternative sources of funding, Mr Amenga-Etego said there should be a special levy on high water users such as the breweries and the mining companies as well as special taxes in the likeness of the talk time tax to ensure enough funding in the sector.
He also said the business of supplying treated water to ships should be the core business for GWCL and Aqua Vitens Rands Limited since they are the main providers of water in Ghana.
Hannah Asomaning
The Millennium Development Authority [MIDA] has commenced rehabilitation works on some selected feeder roads in Central and Eastern Regions of Ghana to fast-track the transportation of farm produce to markets.
A total of 75 kilometers of road networks from Awutu Senya District through to the Akwapim South Municipality in the Central and Eastern Regions will be upgraded to bituminous status.
The construction works valued at about $13 million forms part of the Roads Improvement Programme in Agric Operational Areas under the Millennium Challenge Compact [MCC] Ghana program.
Ghana’s Minister of Roads and Highways, Joe Gidisu cutting a sod at Bontrase yesterday, in the Central region to commence the project indicated the two regions were areas for vast horticultural agric products and hence the completion of the roads would boost production and curtail post harvest losses.
“The government has an agenda to improve living conditions and improved road networks are the fasted route to the economic development of any nation”, he said.
He urged the contactors to complete the project on schedule to improve the lives of farmers and bring joy to the many people plying the road.
Mr David Yohannes, Chief Executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’ said that the United States will continue to build pragmatic partnership with developing countries as the bases to improve the living standards of people on the globe.
“The $547 million MCA compact would to enable Ghanaian communities have access to improved school structures, better roads and available markets for farm produce” he noted.
Patrick Baidoo
A Four–day regional workshop on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of
Terrorism (AML/CFT) Compliance Supervision co-organized by the Inter-
Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA)
and the World Bank will begin on Monday, February 8, 2010 in Accra,
Ghana.
The workshop targeted at senior and executive level staff of central banks and other supervisory agencies in Anglophone West Africa aims at assisting participants to better understand the mechanism of risk-based approach to anti-money laundering.
A statement issued from the GIABA secretariat in Senegal and signed by the Communication Assistant, Usman Muhammad said the programme is part of GIABA’s strategic approach at assisting member States in addressing the harmful effects of money laundering.
It is also being organized to promote international standards and best practices within the sub-region.
Patrick Baidoo
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will lead the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information Feb. 7-9, in Accra, Ghana, hosted by The Carter Center and its partners in Africa.
Only five African countries currently have a statutory right to information and of these, some laws are being used repressively and others not implemented.
A release issues by the Carter Centre said many obstacles continue to exist to passing and implementing further legislation, including a failure of political leadership, a culture of secrecy, low public awareness, and institutional barriers.
“We are bringing stakeholders together to consider the issues in a meaningful way and will come up with a concrete action plan to move forward the right of access to information in Africa,” said Laura Neuman, project manager of the access to information initiative at The Carter Center.
The conference will convene more than 100 participants representing regional and international institutions, government, civil society, media, academia, and the private sector from at least 15 countries in Africa.
A regional action plan with specific guidance for African nations will be developed and function as an addendum to the 2008 Atlanta Declaration and Plan of Action for the Advancement of the Right of Access to Information.
The Carter Center has worked in the access to public information field since 1999, with a special focus in Jamaica, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Mali, and China to support the establishment of comprehensive laws and voluntary disclosure strategies and assist their implementation and enforcement.
The Carter Center is a non profit organization that has helped to improve life for people in more than 70 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; improving mental health care; and teaching farmers in developing nations to increase crop production.
Hannah Asomaning
People suffering from autoimmune disease on Saturday requested government to give clear procedures about how they could benefit from the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
At a forum that gave the patients a platform to share their experiences, most of the sufferers said it was difficult getting the right diagnoses early, which also resulted in high medical cost.
Autoimmune diseases are diseases, which causes the antibodies in humans to attack the cells instead of fighting external diseases. Autoimmune diseases usually cause disability in the sufferer.
The forum was organized by Sharecare Ghana, a civil society organization that acts as a support group for people with neuro-immunological diseases in Ghana.
Dr Augustina Charway, a neurologist at the 37 Military Hospital, explained to the patients that the first step to getting the right treatment was for a primary health care giver or a General Practitioner in any hospital to refer patients to a neurologist.
“However, there is very little awareness about autoimmune diseases and sometimes primary health care givers are even not able to identify the disease over a long period of time,” she added.
Dr Charway advised people to visit the hospital whenever they felt unexplained numbness or weaknesses in certain parts of their body and mentioned that the actual cause of autoimmune diseases had not been found but some could be heredity.
Some members of Sharecare Ghana also pointed out that the real difficulty for them was how to get the right doctors and the early diagnoses.
They therefore urged government to pay attention to such diseases under the NHIS.
Mr Duut Abdulai, Executive Secretary of the National Council of People with Disability, added his voice to the call for government to pay attention to people with disabilities.
He said when issues of disability are mainstreamed into the development programmes of the country it facilitate development.
Nana Yaa Agyeman, Founder of Sharecare Ghana, said the organization is registering members, who are unable to work with the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme to enable them earn something to support themselves.
The LEAP is a poverty reduction programme by government.
She said the organization would continue to lobby for the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana to cover all diseases.
Miss Mimi Areme, Miss Ghana 2009, who also attended the meeting, said she would embark on an educational campaign to encourage the showing of care and love to the disabled.
Miss Ghana has one of her projects to advocate for people suffering from autoimmune diseases.
Hannah Asomaning
The United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD) stands ready to provide assistance to help rebuild the capacities of Haiti in the area of economic governance, the organization’s Secretary-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, said on Monday.
UNCTAD will join in UN-wide recovery plans for the earthquake-stricken country, bringing together the World Bank, IMF, European Commission, Inter-American Development Bank, UN regional commissions and many other actors, under the leadership of the Haitian Government.
UNCTAD, leading the UN’s Interagency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacities, will coordinate assistance in the following areas:
Enhancing export opportunities and reactivating international trade operations;Promoting international investment; and Developing small- and medium-sized enterprises.
All of these efforts will help foster productive capacities – that is, the ability of the economy to produce and trade in a wide range of goods of increasing value added and hence support employment generation and economic growth.
Mr. Supachai said that UNCTAD, through the interagency grouping, will coordinate assistance with regional organizations, in particular the Economic System for Latin America and the Caribbean (SELA) and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), both of which are already working in Haiti on trade and trade-related matters.
The UNCTAD Secretary-General, noting that recovery for Haiti will be a lengthy process, cited a statement delivered on behalf of the UN system at yesterday’s Ministerial Conference on Haiti in Montreal.
At that conference, Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), referred to Haiti’s “enormous challenge of recovery and reconstruction”.
The earthquake, measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, struck Haiti on 12 January
Hannah Asomaning