NDC and NPP MPs in embraced themselves with confrontation in Parliament
It was a tremendous scene in Parliament of Ghana seeing members of the Minority and Majority engaging themselves with some level of physical confrontation. The drama started after the Second Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu ruled to reject a motion by the minority side. The minority had moved for a vote to overturn the approval of the 2022 budget as passed by the all-majority side of the house on Tuesday. The house on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, voted to overturn a vote of rejection passed on the budget by the minority side on Friday, November 27, 2021, after the majority side had staged a boycott of proceedings The majority side in the absence of the minority who stayed out of the chamber on Tuesday after overturning the rejection vote of Friday, also voted to approve the 2022 budget. The house having reconvened on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, engaged in a heated banter over the decision by the Second Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei Owusu who sat in as acting speaker in the absence of Speaker Alban Bagbin, to count himself as part of MPs present to form a quorum on Tuesday. However ruling on the motion by the minority to overturn the approval of the budget, the Second Deputy Speaker upheld the approval saying he is an MP and that taking up speakership duties in the absence of the speaker does not take away his position as an MP. “I am a member of parliament, the honourable second deputy speaker is a member of parliament and our role is to assist the speaker in managing this house. Any attempt to read and interpret the constitution of Mr. Speaker to include the deputy speakers is a misreading and a misapplication of the constitution,” he stated. Mr Osei-Owusu further stated that a member stepping in as speaker does not take away his rights as an MP and thus, he had every right to be counted as part of the quorum. He thus went ahead to rule against the motion by the minority and adjourned sitting for 30 minutes. Incensed by the speaker’s ruling, the minority MPs flooded the floor of the house and were joined by some majority members leading to a chaotic scene with some of the MPs pushing and shoving each other. In the heat of the moment, Ashiaman MP, Ernest Norgbey, grabbed the speaker’s chair ostensibly to register their displeasure with the second deputy speaker saying he is not a speaker. “He said he is not a speaker, we will treat him as such,” a minority MP was heard shouting over the microphone. The scene was later taken over with both sides singing various patriotic songs to make a point. Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093
MTN Ghana foundation contributes a total of 10m to support government’s fight against COVID-19
MTN Ghana Foundation has donated GHC5Million to National COVID Trust Fund to support government’s effort in combating Corona Virus pandemic in the country. This presentation brings MTN’s total contribution to the National COVID Trust Fund to Ghc10 million. Speaking at a ceremony to present the cheque to Trustees of the Fund at the Jubilee House, the CEO of MTN Ghana, Mr. Selorm Adadevoh expressed his gladness at the opportunity given to MTN to demonstrate its commitment to the people of Ghana by supporting the Trust Fund in their fight against COVID-19. He said, “Our support to the Trust Fund is to ensure the Government’s strategy in combating the pandemic is fully achieved”. “We believe this will help immensely to provide the needed PPES, education and other services for the people of Ghana and most importantly to brighten lives as we celebrate our 25th Anniversary”, he added. Receiving the cheque on behalf of the Trustees of the National COVID Trust Fund, the chairperson of the Fund, Justice Sophia Akuffo, said, “The contributions have dwindled over the past year. I’m happy that MTN Ghana has come through. MTN Ghana has been a key supporter of the COVID Trust Fund and has contributed a total sum of 10 million Ghana cedis. It is one of the few organizations to have contributed this much to support the fight against COVID-19 in Ghana. We are truly grateful for their assistance.” She added that, “There seems to be this false notion among the public that the pandemic is gone. The fact is the extent of the pandemic has been quite devastating and continues to cause death. There seems to be evidence of a new variant developing. We continue to encourage the Ghanaian citizenry to continue to adhere to all the COVID-19 protocols. We also strongly encourage that they get vaccinated. We are grateful to MTN and hope other organizations will follow their example as we all work to fight his deadly virus.” The donation to the National COVID-19 Trust Fund is one of the many interventions by MTN Ghana to help stem the COVID 19 pandemic. At the time when the nation was highly in need of PPEs, test kits and PCR Machines in 2020, the MTN Ghana Foundation donated 44,000 Personal Protective Equipment, four (4) Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Machines and Test Kits to the National COVID Trust at the cost of GHS 5 Million. The donation was to help the National COVID Trust Fund enhance the protection of all health personnel in the fight against COVID -19 in the Country. Some of the other key interventions include: Collaboration with the National Information Technology Authority (NITA) to offer all Government workers free access to the Smart Workplace Portal to support Government’s work from home program and protecting the customer through the provision of critical health information. Other interventions were the provision of free internet access to over 200 websites for online education for public and private institutions and free MoMo transfers up to Ghc100 a day and revision of MoMo wallet limits. MTN Ghana supported the infection monitoring and contact tracing team through the provision of 800 SIM Cards and 8 Terabytes of data to National Security and 10 TurboNet fixed wireless devices with over 2 terabytes of data to the COVID-19 Response Team for use by contact tracers. MTN has also deployed mobile money merchant accounts as collection conduits to support Government institutions such as the Ministry of Finance and the First Lady’s mobilization fund for COVID-19. MTN Ghana also contributed three educational campaigns aimed at getting people to live responsibly. “Be Wise”, Wear it for me” and “One More Push” campaigns were to encourage people across the continent not to give up in the fight against COVID-19, and to continue to wear their masks, wash their hands and practice social distancing. On the vaccination front, MTN Group donated USD$25million to support AU’s vaccination rollout across 55 member states to cover 7 million vaccine doses for health workers. MTN Ghana Foundation will continue to support efforts aimed at mitigating the impact of COVID -19 in Ghana. Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093
Navrongo: Chief accused of allegedly selling poles provided for his community rural electrification projects
Paramount Chief of the Kologo Traditional Area in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, Naba Clifford Asobayire, has been accused of allegedly selling poles provided for rural electrification projects in his traditional area. Apexnewsgh.com According to the information reaching this platform, some electric poles secured for the rural electrification project in the Kassena Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region are said to have been in the custody of the police since yesterday Monday, November 29, 2021 following a report that the chief through a middle man is allegedly selling them out to individuals at the cost of Six Hundred and Fifty Ghana cedis each (Ghc 650.00). According to aggrieved community members, with the intervention of security, the poles captured in a truck above are currently packed at the Navrongo police station for further investigations. “For me, I don’t have any knowledge about selling any poles. In fact, all what was brought to me…. myself and the contractor we are on-site now working and some of the material is yet to get to Kologo here and am waiting to receive them as I have received some yesterday so, am not selling any pole. But I can attest to you that I went to the Ministry of Energy and lobby for electricity extension for my traditional area and fortunately they have awarded the contract for the contractor to come and do the work. The engineer who is supposed to supervise the work, he is supervising it”. Responding to the allegation of alleged selling of poles to some individuals through a middle man by the name Justice Kudare, the chief denied the allegation. According to him, Justice, is an electrician who normally helped with some electrical issues home. “I am the paramount chief for Kologo and am in for development, I don’t joke at all with my community. I wrote to the Ministry of Energy for them to come and extend electricity in the whole of Kologo traditional area for me. All the materials that have come are there intact in the house”. He said “I know, I contested the chieftaincy with some people and they are the same people who are trying to give me a bad name when am doing good for my community”. “And again, the assembly members, i can point 2 or 3 in the community, because of their political interest they wanted these poles I have lobbied and brought to be handed over to them so that they will distribute to the community. So, that when they distribute to the community, they will come and use it to do their politics and I said no to that, I will not accept that today, I won’t accept that tomorrow. I have gone to lobby for the project and they have given it to me to come and give to the community period”. Naba Clifford Asobayire told Apexnewsgh.com Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093