100km Tema-Mpakadan rail line 80% complete – Amewu
The Minister of Railway Development, Mr John-Peter Amewu, has said the 100km Tema-Mpakadan rail line is 80 per cent complete and scheduled to be handed over in November 2021. Mr Amewu recently toured and inspected the project, which is part of the 1,100 km Ghana-Burkina Faso railway interconnectivity project. The Hohoe MP reported that: “My inspection tour started with a courtesy call on Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, Paramount Chief of Akwamu Traditional Area’s palace (Akwamufie) where we were warmly received. The palace visit was to introduce myself and my entourage and also seek Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III’s blessings before entering the Akwamu land for our inspection tour”. On behalf President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mr Amewu said: “I expressed the government’s appreciation to the Akwamu people for their support and also reiterated the Akufo-Addo government’s commitment to the railway industry’s development, referencing the quantum of investments this government has done within these 4 years in terms of the expenditure combined being far more than the 16 years of the previous governments’ expenditure combined”. The Tema-Mpakadan railway project, he noted, “is currently over 80% complete”, adding: “The completion and handing over of this railway line are scheduled for November this year”. The 100 km Akosombo-Mpakadan railway line, he pointed out, “is the beginning of the 1,100 km Ghana-Burkina Faso railway interconnectivity project”. “By the year 2022, construction work is scheduled to start on the remaining portions of this intercontinental line”, the minister noted. During his visit to the chief’s palace, he said Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, in his speech, “requested some pedestrian footbridges to be incorporated into various parts of the railway line to prevent obstructions when the line becomes operational”. “He also requested his citizens to be considered for training and scholarship opportunities within the railway sector when these opportunities arise”, Mr Amewu said. Additionally, he said the chief “also appealed for a community engagement with the Akwamu citizens by the ministry and agencies to enlighten them on the soon-to-be operationalised railway line and how they can maximise its benefit as stakeholders”. “I have tasked the Ministry and Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA) to, within the next 30 days, organise this stakeholder engagement with the Akwamu community”, he said. After the visit to the Akwamuhene’s palace, Akwamufie, “we continued to inspect work on Mpakadan Railhead Terminal, Volta Rail Bridge, Doryumu Railway Station, and the completed truck works at km 27 to km 34, all at various parts of the 100 km Tema-Mpakadan railway line”. Accompanying the minister on the inspection tour were the Chief Director of the Railway Development Ministry, Mr Desmond Boateng; the acting CEO of the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA), Mr Yao Owusu; and the minister’s Technical Advisor at the ministry, Mr Allan Doegah, and others. Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093.
Sitting MP Who Scams a Foreigner Thousands of US Dollars ‘Exposed’
Per what BROADCASTGHANA.NET has gathered, it appeared an Honourable Member of Parliament has been implicated in a dubious act, as reported by Opera News. The report culled from the news portal bares that an intelligence gathered by NET2 TV indicates that a sitting member of Parliament has allegedly duped a foreigner to a tune of thousands of US dollars. Host of NET2 TV’s “The Seat” show, Kwaku Annan made the revelation last night, Wednesday 14th April, 2021. Kwaku Annan said the Member of Parliament in question, has duped several people in the past. He added that the MP financed his political campaign in the run up to the 2020 elections with proceeds from his gold scam business. According the outspoken journalist, the said MP is ably assisted by a lawyer. He said, “we have videos and pictures of him being stabbed at the back with a knife due his involvement in gold scam in the past. He lied to the foreigner that he would he help get some gold but bolted away the money”. Kwaku Annan decided to keep the MP’s name secret upon advice from his producer. However, he threatened to give his (the MP) name to the Speaker of Parliament, Right Honourable Alban Babgin if he fails to refund the foreigner’s money by Monday. He then gave Eastern Region as the Member of Parliament’s home Region without mentioning the specific constituency he serves. Broadcastghana Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093.
HOT AUDIO: About 2,000 Covid-19 vaccines in Northern Region to expire on Friday
The Northern Region is reeling from a setback in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Thousands of Covid-19 jabs deployed to the region as part of the ongoing vaccinations are due to expire by Friday, April 16, 2021. According to the Regional Director for Public Health, Hilarius Abiwu, the first batch of AstraZeneca doses which were manufactured in October 2020, are expected to last for half a year. “So effectively that’s six months will be on the 16th of this month,” he told the GBC. According to him, a safety directive by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to hold off vaccinations a few days to the expire day means his outfit must halt administering jabs from today. Mr Abiwu said, “three days ago, we had more than 5000 doses. And more than 2,000 close to 3,000 of these doses were taken up by people.” This leaves all other persons who are looking to be administered with the vaccines stranded as the Northern Regional Health Director indicates that “there are more people who are calling for the vaccines.” Some health experts have already lamented the situation in the Norther Region. Public Health Expert and Adjunct Professor at New York University, Nana Kofi Quakyi describes its as a “terrible shame for any of Ghana’s already limited supply of #COVID19 vaccines to go to waste.” “Merits some serious thinking about the rate of uptake, the persistence of vaccine hesitancy, and the effectiveness of efforts to combat (digital),” he posted on Twitter. The development comes at a time when African countries are facing potential delays to their vaccine rollouts because of global supply issues. Ghana has so far administered 742,349 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines as of April 12, 2021. Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093.
Tackle ‘dumsor’ with solar energy – German Renewable Energy Expert to govt
The government of Ghana must make it a priority to empower individuals and companies to veer into solar energy for their day-to-day activities in order to reduce the pressure on the national grid, Michele Velenderic, a German Renewable Energy Expert, has suggested. Even though he recognizes that Ghana at the moment has no problem with generational capacity, he said the demand is increasing on a daily basis which will mean that pressure will be piled up on the national grid. “Demand will be rising and there will be the need for more capacity,” he said while contributing to a discussion on how the government can resolve the issues of intermittent power supply to some parts of the country, on the Sunrise Show on 3FM Thursday April 15. Mr Velenderic further explained that solar energy is a great thing and extremely cheap “if you use it directly to power appliances, if you don’t store it.” Germany that does not have the amount of sunshine like Ghana does, he explained, has been able to take advantage of solar energy and now has 50GW installation, thereby easing the pressure on their national grid. Apart from helping resolve the energy situation in the country, renewable energy, he said, also has the propensity of creating more jobs for the people of this country. “Put up the framework to empower individuals or companies to install the power system and to integrate into the existing grid to boost installations to alleviate the pressure on the national grid,” he told host of the programme Alfred Ocansey. “The framework for integration of decentralized energy sources is not there yet. So now complete development is expected to come from one central source which is ECG. They are facing big problems because first you have to maintain what is there, secondly, the demand is rising a lot. “So it is very hard for these institutions to follow up with this demand. So, one way of enabling more development in the field will be to create the framework for enabling decentralized smaller productions to be integrated into the electricity grid.” “To put it very simple, decentralize production system. So every home could have solar panels. One of the issues now is you cannot really integrate this small production sites in the utility grid. The problem we have with renewable is the high volatility. The sun is there and is gone but your demand is there constantly. So you must store energy. Storage of course is expensive but if you can rely on the grid for some time to solar energy and then take it on a later time from the grid. This will make the whole problem much easier to handle.” The Executive Director of the African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) Mr Ben Boakye noted that high demand is gradually putting undue pressure on Ghana’s infrastructure. “Demand is growing, so if you put a transformer in my area and everyday many people move in adding a lot of appliance it gets to a point where the infrastructure becomes over stretched,” he said in an earlier interview with 3FM. Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093.
JUST IN: Full details of Akufo-Addo’s impending deputy ministerial list – Report
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will serve Parliament with a list of persons to be vetted as deputy ministers today, pro-government news portal Asaase.com reports. The reports states that in line with the dictates of the constitution President Akufo-Addo will release the list of deputy ministers with some interesting names featuring. It is indicated in the report that the Finance Ministry will have three deputy ministers while Oppong Nkrumah will have two deputies. Charles Adu-Boahen and Abena Osei Asare who served as deputy ministers in the first term of the Akufo-Addo administration will be joined by another person with Kwaku Kwarteng swapping his role as deputy for chairman of parliament’ Finance Committee. The deputy communications director at the Office of the President, Fatimatu Abubakar will leave the seat of government to join Oppong Nkrumah as one of two deputies. Andrew Egyapa Mercer the MP for Sekondi will become one of three deputies to Matthew Opoku Prempeh at the Energy Ministry. The Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice will have two deputies with Diana Asonaba Dapaah tipped to be one of them. She is a lawyer who has been called to the Ghana and New York bars. Asaase claims that unlike the substantive ministerial list, the deputy ministerial will have more women than men. Previous reports had Mark Okraku Mantey becoming the deputy Minister for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts with presidential health advisor Dr Nsiah-Asare being the deputy to Kwaku Agyeman-Manu as Health Minister. GhanaWeb Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093.
UER: School furniture in Talensi St. Thomas Aquinas pathetic, needs urgent attention
The furniture problem in most schools is becoming too problematic for most schools in the Upper East Region. A school is known as a place of teaching and learning. But one would ask, what are the role of our district assemblies when it comes to making furniture available to schools? In Talensi District of the Upper East Region, the story of St. Thomas Aquinas Primary School Gdeogo is becoming more popular than the normal Nigerian Mr. Ibu comedy’s we watch on television screen each day. It is becoming so common these days to see school buildings easily putting up by MMDCEs through their Internal Generated Fund/ Common Fund across the region without making provisions for furniture, to enhance a better learning conducive atmosphere for our innocent children. In Talensi District St. Thomas Aquinas Primary 1 classroom, the table above was capture and I have been wondering if the pupils found in this classroom will be able to described ‘Table’ accurately when given the opportunity because it is obvious this classroom table is very exceptional. Apexnewsgh.com, is however using its platform to appeal for the assistance of well-meaning personalities within and outside the region to come to their aid. However, the school is generally having a furniture problem. Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093.