BREAKING: Teachers’ Demonstration Targeted At GES Headquarters Finally Announced -See Date and Venue
In a Facebook post sighted by Bricy Boateng which I will share in this article, scores of members in the teaching profession are saddened with these teacher unions for forcing a laptop on them as well as allegedly using their tier two pensions to pre-finance the manufacturing of Teachers Mate 1 laptops. In another post sighted in teachers group on Telegram reveals that these aggrieved teachers will soon lay down their tools to protest on the streets of Accra the three giant teacher unions do nothing about the alleged corruption or GES does not pay back the money deducted. Part of the statement reads, “Demonstration Demonstration. All roads lead to GES headquarters. GES refund our GH¢509 now, we don’t need uncertified brandless laptops`.” According to the aggrieved teachers, if the Ghana Education Service does not pay back the money which they authorized the Controller And Accountant General to deduct from about 300,000 teachers, come December 15, 2021, they will demonstrate at the premises of the GES headquarters in Ministries, Accra. Recently, the former Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh disclosed on Peacefm that he had no dealings in the procurement of 280,000 laptops for teachers adding that it was GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT-GH who cooked up all the ideas and even brought the manufacturer. Upon clearing the air, he has refuted allegations that he was directly involved in contracting KA Technologies to manufacture the laptops and made profits out of it. Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 0555568093.
Farmer’s Day: Diary With Former Defense Minister Mark Woyongo–A Must Read
As Ghana celebrates its 37th edition of Farmers Day, Apexnews Ghana has been focusing its attention on Ghana’s former Members of Parliament who after moving out of Parliament, have decided to venture into farming as their lifetime business. One amongst these MPs turned full-time farmer, is Mr. Mark Owen Woyongo. He was also the former Member of Parliament for the Navrongo Central constituency. Today, Mr. Mark Owen Woyongo is a full-time farmer. This year 2021, he was able to farm 500 acres of rice. But, the question begging for answers is, how is he doing the magic? What is the challenge facing Ghanaian commercial farmers? Is the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) beneficial to commercial farmers? What is Mr. Mark Owen Woyongo general view about the farmer’s Day celebration? Below are his engagement and responses to Apexnews Ghana Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen on Farmer’s Day Every country should celebrate farmers because agriculture is very important in the economic development of every country and it is good that government continues to celebrate farmer’s day. But I think that a lot needs to be done in order to make farmers happy. “For example, this year we struggled to get a few bags of fertilizer, we wanted so much fertilizer because this year am doing about 500 acres of rice and wanted about 500 bags of fertilizer for our farm. But we only got about 250 bags and that’s half of what we wanted and that’s even discouraging farmers, especially we the commercial farmers”. “The unfortunate thing is that the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) focuses on the small-scale farmers, not much attention is paid to the commercial farmers, which I think is very unfortunate because we produced the bulk of the food. When they are giving the fertilizers, they only considered those who will need 5 or 10 bags of fertilizers, they don’t make provision for those of us who need about 500 bags of fertilizer and even then, not all the small-scale farmers will be able to get the fertilizers”. “It is good we are focusing on agriculture but, I think is important we pay more attention to the provision of the inputs to farmers. They should not also ignore the commercial farmers, because you can imagine the quantity of rice I can produce, you will need about 100 small-scale farmers before they will be able to produce the same”. “So, if we have to be safe sufficient in food production, attention has to be given to the commercial farmers to encourage them to produce more. Once you are encouraging the small-scale farmer, also encourage the commercial farmer, because together we produce so much food to make the country safe sufficient in food production. I think that should the approach”. “Unfortunately, the PFJ doesn’t pay much attention to value addition. You produced the rice, you should be able to mill the rice, ready for the market but here is the case, there are no mills. The mills are very limited and they determine how much they pay you for your rice but, if we have several mills there will be competition and they will offer better prices for our rice because it will be competitive. But here is the case, both of the farmers in our enclave where we farm, all send their rice to Avnash Rice mills which is the biggest mill and they determine how they should pay you for a bag of rice and it will even depend on the moisture content of your rice. So, a lot needs to be done to bring about competition into agriculture, is not a matter of just producing food, we must add value to it. Something needs to be done. “13 farms got burnt because there are not enough combine harvesters in the system, 13 farms can you imagine the quantity of rice that got burnt? A lot of rice, a lot of money have gone to waste. So, I think we need to look at it holistically this Planting for Food and Jobs should be look at production, value addition, supply of input and the rest of them”. “But, if we do it half hazardly, we will produce the food but it will go waste. Because along the line some of it will burn because there are no combined harvesters to harvest, we will produce the food but those who will add value will continue to exploit the producer. So, there is a lot to be done”. “Government should bring stakeholders together and find a way out of this problem. It looks like the Ministry of Agriculture is just taking the decision without any reference to the producers”. Mr. Mark Woyongo concluded More to come soon Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 0555568093.
consolidating and strengthening our food system have become even more critical in the light of COVID-19–Akufo-Addo
According to President Akufo-Addo, consolidating and strengthening our food system have become even more critical in the light of COVID-19, which continue to disrupt the global chains and expose the vulnerability of the system worldwide. He believes, there is a need to build a sustainable, resilient and equitable food systems that can withstand shocks, of it the greatest necessity. The president was speaking on Friday, 3 December 2021, at the 37th celebration of the National Farmers Day in Cape Coast, Central Region. Below is his post on Facebook: Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 0555568093.
Navrongo: Niagia Awe awarded overall best farmer in the Kassena Nankana Municipality
Navrongo Municipality has awarded Mr. Niagia Awe a 49-year-old husband of 3 wives and father of 12 children, native of Pindaa community in the Kassena Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region the 2021 overall best farmer. Apexnewsgh.com report 51 nominees were selected for the 2021 award programmes in the Municipality. Addressing the congregation at the farmer’s day celebration which took place at the Kologo community, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) Adongo Joseph extended appreciation to President Akufo-Addo for putting more attention on agriculture. “His excellency Nana Akufo-Addo missed no words in assessing his vision in which agriculture is taking a center stage in Ghana’s economic development agenda by transforming and modernizing agriculture through an all-inclusive plan to enhance food security, improve farm productivity, strengthening linkages with industry and thereby create jobs, improve rural livelihood and work for all Ghanaians”. “As a representative of the President in this Municipality, I am happy to report that the Kassena Nankana Municipality has gotten its first share of the huge investment by this government in the agricultural sector. I must say that, through modernizing agriculture in Ghana programme, our municipality received 15 motorbikes for extension service delivery this year”. He pointed He believes that will help improve the extension service in the municipality. “Under the government’s flagship programme Planting for Food and Jobs, a total of 89,600 mini bags of NPK fertilizer as well as 6,100 mini bags of Urea fertilizer were distributed to a total number of 5, 639 farmers this year. Under this same programme, a total of 9,400 organic fertilizer and 5,000 litre of liquid organic fertilizer were received by the municipality this year and distributed to farmers”. He said Mr. Adongo said, there has been a significant increase in productivity and hence improved livelihood. He added that such a milestone wouldn’t have been achieved without the Planting for Food and Jobs programme. However, he acknowledged the untimely arrival of inputs, sale of inputs above the approved price hooding and smuggling of inputs as a challenge as he sends a word of caution to those engaging in such activity to desist from it. Paramount Chief of Navrongo Traditional Council in the Kasena-Nankana Municipal Assembly of the Upper East Region of Ghana, Pe Asagepare Balinia Adda II and the chief of the host community Naba Clifford Abagna Asobayire and some other personalities were all present at the event. Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 0555568093.
Education Ministry ‘blames’ Napo for sole-sourcing Ghc500m laptop ‘Create, Loot & Share’
The Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, has denied claims of a “create, loot, and share” scheme in the contract to procure and supply laptop computers to some pre-tertiary school teachers across the country, pointing fingers, rather, at his predecessor Mathew Opoku Prempeh as the one under whose watch the deal happened. A statement from the Ministry in reaction to a MyNewsGh.com publication November 2021, said we “deliberately misrepresented” the facts regarding the procurement and supply of laptops for pre-tertiary teachers but rather in any case, it was procured on sole sourcing basis under Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the former Education Minister now at Energy. The Education Minister stating this in his response was an attempt to hoodwink unsuspecting members of the public that he is newbie at the MoE, when in actual fact, he was Mathew Opoku Prempeh’s Deputy for 4 years. The Ministry which has committed government to pay 70% of the cost of the laptop explained that it had little to do with the murky deal but that in September 2020, the leadership of the three teacher Unions with membership strength of 350,000 sought funding support from the government through the Ministry of Education (MoE) for the procurement and distribution of 350,000 laptop computers for its members. While there is no available record of the transaction with the PPA with information about the deal hidden like a National Security “top secret” following chop chop allegations, the MOE claims request for approval to use Single-Sourced procurement process to engage KA Technologies Ghana Limited for the supply of the laptop computers was made on the 17th of November 2020 by the then Minister for Education Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh” some three weeks to the 2020 election. No evidence of same is provided or even available at PPA so far. Under Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the cost of the laptops which has a mere Celeron 1.0 speed processor, a 4GiG Ram among others is believed to have been inflated by more than 300% according to two teacher unions who are in court, and who are also protesting the fact that the laptop cost will be deducted from the Professional Development allowance of Ghanaian teachers against their will. Indeed, the company K.A. Technologies, just like its counterpart which got a contract to supply 853,000 mathematical sets at Ghc75 each, got an easy contract to supply the 350,000 laptops at a cost of Ghc1,500 (later inflated to Ghc1,851), a charge the Ministry denied, distancing itself from the deal in which it is committing government to pay 70% of the cost. The Ministry said the company at the center is not a new company but is an old company with a new name. The Ministry of Education in its response however failed to address the fact that the Mandatory Eligibility Criteria set forth in Section III (C) of the procurement of the Information Technology Product document issued by the Public Procurement Authority was not met by K.A Technology Ltd. before grabbing the half a billion contract, even if it were an old company as claimed. The Ministry also failed to state whether it has investigated and is satisfied with K.A Technology which claims to be the actual manufacturer of the Teachers Mate 1 (TM1) laptop but failed to obtained clearance from the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) to certify the quality standard and durability of the laptop it is supplying and to confirm whether the laptops are being indeed produced in Ghana or being imported from China surreptitiously but branded “Made in Ghana” and at what cost. The GSA certification is more important especially when the Education Ministry bypassed brands like Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, Acer, HP, Lenovo and other established brands with reputation for producing quality laptops. As at today, 21st November, 2021 that has not been done. MyNewsGh.com is reliably informed the company is now trying to obtain a certification after a first batch has already been distributed. The same K.A Technology was revealed to have unlawfully obtained a tax clearance certificate to facilitate its legitimization of the dubious sole contract it was awarded, something the MoE refused or failed to address as further checks from SSNIT revealed the company only recently obtained a certificate from the state company- neither is the company itself addressing this. The Ministry runs away from the deal It is interesting for the Education Ministry to claim lack of ownership and push the deal to the teachers Unions of GNAT and NAGRAT, CCT given that government is paying 70% of the cost while these Unions’ members pay only 30%. Wouldn’t be in government interest to ensure value for money? ”An approval to use Single-Sourced procurement method to engage KA Technologies for the supply of the computers at a unit cost of GHS 1550 by Section 40(1) (d) of Act 663 as amended was communicated to the Ministry in a letter dated 20th November 2020″ the statement noted. It continued that, “Consequently an MOU was signed between the Ministry of Education, the Teacher Unions and KA Technologies Ghana Ltd towards the acquisition and supply of the laptop computers”. It said, “originally called NSV Ghana Limited, KA Technologies Ghana Limited is an indigenous private limited liability Company duly registered and incorporated in Ghana under the Companies Act 1963, Act 179 on the 19 days of October 2016. The company had a change of name by a Special Resolution and with the approval of the Registrar of Companies on the 13h day of May 2020”. “The company is primarily into the supply, maintenance, and repair of ICT devices as well as provision of technical training and development in the application of same” the statement added. —MyNewsGh Please contact Apexnewsgh.com on email apexnewsgh@gmail.com for your credible news publications. Contact: 05555568093