The Vice President, Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, officially launched the renovated inner-city roadways in Cape Coast, the capital of the Central Regional, on September 26, 2022.
Competent Bawumia
Dr. Bawumia said during the ceremony that in addition to the SinoHydro, the government is working on roads throughout the entire nation. He revealed that some road projects in the Central Region have been finished.
These include 102 km of highways, including the Cape Coast–Twifo Praso road partially rebuilt, the 30 km access route to Kakum Park upgraded, the 20 km Dunkwa–Twifo Praso–Assin Foso road mostly rebuilt, and the 15 km Bawjiase–Agona Swedru road partially rebuilt. Additionally, Dr. Bawumia stated that the Department of Urban Roads (DUR) had finished 30 km of asphalt overlay work with beneficiary communities like as Cape Coast, Agona Swedru, Winneba, and Anomabo. A further 50 km of roads have been re-gravelled by the DUR, and 7.5 km of roads have been rehabilitated.
Additionally, 75 km of highways in the Central Region have been bituminously resurfaced by the Department of Feeder Roads, and six significant bridges have been built.
A total of 22 kilometers of the roads have bitumen surfacing. Bitumen has been laid down on the 12.5-kilometer Nyakrom-Bobikuma road, the 16.5-kilometer Kushea – Abotareye -Akwawusu-Atweneboana route, and the Winneba-Sankor-Ojobi-Akoti road. The Vice President mentioned more steel bridge construction in the Central Region, including a 105-meter-long span bridge on the Suprudu-Ammissano-Mankessim Feeder Road and spans of 25 meters, 20 meters, and 40 meters over the Akora, One, and Okyi rivers, respectively.
It appears the marriage between John Dramani Mahama and Steve Mallory of Africa Watch magazine has come to an end, prompting the desperado former president to seek the services of another mercenary.
Mahama secures the services of Steve H. Hanke
This time round, Mahama has secured the services of Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Just like his phobia of Akufo-Addo drove him to contract Steve Mallory, John Mahama has gone in for this economist whose main job is to attack Dr. Bawumia over the state of the economy.
Steve Mallory invented all manner of stories about Akufo-Addo, published the then NPP candidate’s medical records which turned out to be false.
It was evidently clear that those stories were being written from Ghana by Mahama’s henchmen and same planted in Africa Watch. Those false stories, as bad as they were, could not change the minds of the Ghanaian electorate who voted massively for Nana Addo.
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia will more than likely lead the NPP into the 2024 elections, and all things being equal, the incompetent one, John Mahama, would also lead the NDC in 2024.
Bawumia beats Mahama when the two are compared as presidential candidates. John Mahama cannot stand the might of Bawumia. He is too ordinary to go against Bawumia and so, for him to have a bit of an advantage, Bawumia must be sullied.
Steve Hanke is in to stain the academic prowess of Bawumia. The question is, all those countries this ‘greatest economist’ has advised in the past, what came out of them?
Hanke will falter just like Steve Mallory whose hatred for Akufo-Addo drove him to join forces with Mahama to defile the good image of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. His strenuous efforts will surely come to naught.
Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said that he will not run for reelection when the party convenes congress on December 17. The seasoned politician declared that it was time for him to step aside and allow others to take over the party’s leadership. He claims that the job is very demanding.
Johnson Asiedu Nketiah
“Age plays a major role in everything. This job of a General Secretary involves a lot; your time, energy, among others.” “I have considered all these, and I am of the firm view that I won’t contest again. What I am saying is that I won’t seek re-election as General Secretary,” Mr Nketiah said in an interview with Accra-based Radio Gold on Wednesday, September 21.
When asked about his future step, he declined to respond, stating that he would make the announcement later. However, according to political pundits, he will run for the party’s National Chairmanship position. In 2005, Mr. Nketiah was appointed NDC general secretary and he has led till now. On December 17, the party is anticipated to attend Congress to choose new national officers. Many candidates, including Peter Boamah Otokunor and Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, have announced that they will run for the seat.
The singer of “Abule” revealed in an interview with Accra-based YFM that he first visited Ghana when he was seventeen. According to Patoranking, he had to get employment in Accra Mall because, at that time, he needed to earn money to support himself.
Patoranking, Musician
“I came to Ghana when I was 17 years and I used to be working at the Accra Mall,” he said without disclosing the exact job”. He added that “I also worked at a restaurant directly opposite Frankies at the time”. The award-winning Nigerian artist described how difficult life was at the time while also revealing that he got accepted to the University of Cape Coast (UCC). But he claimed that he left because he was an overseas student and couldn’t afford the tuition.
Beyond this, Patrick Nnaemeka Okorie, better known by his stage name Patoranking, has emerged as one of the new generation of successful Nigerian singers. He has worked with well-known African artists like Sarkodie, Tiwa Savage, and Timaya among others to produce a number of popular songs.
One of his international hits is the remix of “Girlir O” with Tiwa Savage. The single, which was released in 2014, made its MTV Base Official Naija Top 10 chart debut at No. 9. As a fan of Patoranking’s music, Tiwa Savage told Ehiz of MTV Base that she had approached him about doing the remix.
Former President John Mahama has received well wishes for the New Year from Executive Member Stephen Ashitey Adjei of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Tema East. In a letter to Mr. Mahama, Mr. Ashitey Adjei, often known as Moshake, expresses his sincere hope that the former president will tell less lies in the upcoming year and that he will keep him in his prayers.
“As a former leader of my party, the great NDC, I am not happy that you are not generally reliable with what you say. This is why my most fervent wish for you this year is that, we see less and less of the lies from you,” Moshake wrote. The blunt-speaking NDC Executive known as Moshake has charged that former President John Mahama used his position to make NDC unpopular and push the party from power to opposition since 2016. He bemoans the former President’s continued drag on the NDC in his new year’s write-up due to his lack of genuine sincerity in his public speech.
“For instance, everyone knows that the ‘’thank you tour” that you recently embarked on was just an ostensible ploy to actually start your campaign for 2024 flagbearership. How do I know? “Because it is on this same tour that you declared your “do or die” comment. How could you be declaring do or die for the next election if you have no plan of contesting? And yet you told the party you were going on a thank you tour,” Moshake wrote. According to him, “it is lies and monkey tricks like this makes it difficult for the NDC to band together at the top.”
Photo of Ashitey Adjei
Moshake points out that the trick Mr. Mahama pulled with the thank you tour only reminds him of the Mahama bag of tricks. “What you did on the tour is no different from what you did in 2016. You and your family declared to the whole world that you had quit politics, only to turn round and contest for the 2020 presidential ticket of the NDC.”
According to him, “Mr. Mahama even tricked NDC stalwarts including Dr. Ekwow Spio Gabrah, Prof. Joshua Alabi and others into thinking that he would make them running mates in 2020, only to swerve them for Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang.”
The firebrand NDC Executive added that, “Mr. Mahama continued with his dodgy tactics even after losing the 2020 elections, claiming that he had won and yet when he went to court, he could not provide any evidence to back the claim.” The NDC’s reputation is hurt by all of these shady activities, according to Moshake, who argued that even though Mr. Mahama is no longer the party’s head, the NDC still suffers from his lack of simple honesty because he was the party’s most recent leader. “This is why in 2022, the best I can wish for John Mahama, for the sake of the NDC, is a more straightforward lifestyle. No more using supposed health walks as means to start campaigns through the backdoor, like Mahama did in Tamale; no more announcing retirement from politics only to return, and no more claiming victory and misleading the party’s youth on the streets to demonstrate only to fail miserably to produce one shred of evidence in court.
“I have always said that our imperfect human nature frequently impels us to do and say things at the wrong time, but lying on the part of former president Mahama is going beyond reasonable definition of what is appropriate, Mr. Mahama should withdraw from the 2024 flagbearership race and submit himself to character transformation in this new year,“ Moshake wrote.
Ghana Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia during an interview with The Standard. [File, Standard]
Amongst the dignitaries who attended President William Ruto’s inauguration on Tuesday, September 13 was Ghana’s Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia. The Standard had a sit down with him after the ceremony and he had this to say.
How was your experience at President William Ruto’s Inauguration?
It was a very successful event not just from my perspective but also from that of Ghana. It is just not a Kenyan success story but an African success story to have a peaceful transition of power. We remember the old days of difficult transitions and since we have embarked on the democratic journey, every step and milestone is important.
How would you rate the diplomatic relations between Kenya and Ghana?
We have very good relations that date back to independence when our first President Kwame Nkrumah and Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta shared good relations. They engaged in the independence struggle against colonialism and got our countries independent with their movement. Subsequently, our relationship has been growing. There is a sizeable Kenyan community in Ghana and because of Kenya Airways, which has a direct flight to Ghana, there are a lot more commercial ties between the two countries.
Africa is in the process of implementing The Africa Free Continental Trade Area (AFCTA). What is your view on its implementation and potential challenges?
People like Kwame Nkrumah were a bit ahead of their time with their vision as they held a view that Africa needed to be cooperative and united which is today being manifested. AFCTA is the biggest free trade area in the world. It is important that Africa trades by itself as we have largely traded with our colonial masters. AFCTA is an idea whose time has come and Ghana is the secretariat hence we are very passionate about it. There are a lot of opportunities and potential to realize.
The bottlenecks to be experienced is logistics and transportation. Another challenge will be payments, but recently I launched the Pan African Payment and Settlement Systems (PAPS) in collaboration with the Central Bank which allows someone from Kenya to buy something in Ghana in Kenya Shillings without the need to worry about a third-party currency like the US dollar to trade. This is a major innovation that will help us bridge the gap that we have in the payment and settlement area.
It is important that we open up the skies. It should be an open sky policy and build up the infrastructure links across the countries. I believe we have the opportunity and the ability to make it happen to realize the dreams that our Nkrumahs and Kenyattas had.
Inflation is an issue grappling many African countries, how is Ghana handling the challenge?
The cost of living across the world has just increased phenomenally, this is coming at the back of the Covid-19 pandemic which disrupted the global supply chain and increased shipping costs almost tenfold. When we thought we were recovering, we had the Russia and Ukraine war that caused an increase in energy costs and as a result, food prices skyrocketed. It has affected every country and Ghana has been no exception.
We are trying to deal with the issue in this context of very squeezed and tight budgets. On the monetary side, the Central Bank is trying to contain inflation with their monetary policy through a number of interest rate increases to try to contain the situation. The Government still continues to offer free senior secondary school education to our citizens which lessens the burden on families in terms of cost of living.
Ultimately, we deal with this crisis by expanding the cost of production, if it’s a food crisis then you deal with food production. The energy side is a bit difficult since we are net importers of oil and have to be at the dictate of the international markets. We hope sooner or later the Ukraine crisis will albeit bring down the energy crisis but the government is always looking at ways to deal with this.
While at the Central Bank you once reduced inflation from 40 per cent to around 10 per cent, how did you deal with this?
To reduce inflation, you need a good mix of fiscal policy and monetary policy. Inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon and it’s the fiscal that can drive the monetary side of it. If you can work to make sure that your balances on the fiscal side are not excessive, and your balances are not excessive so that you may have to enrol in monetary financing of that deficit then it reduces pressure on prices then you are able to contain inflation. We implemented an inflation target framework, one of the few African countries at the time, and it has proven very successful but that alone is not sufficient as you also have to look at the output side by increasing production.
Ghana Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia during a sit down with The Standard. [File, Standard]
You are a renowned global economist and have headed Ghana’s Central Bank. President Ruto ran his election on the promise of a bottom-up economic model, what’s your take on it?
The Bottom-up economic model is a model of inclusiveness which is fundamentally a good model. What we have seen in Africa since independence is that we have had development without inclusion. What we have seen is that 60 years after independence many people do not have a bank account, access to electricity, so many mothers die giving birth because they do not have access, and so on. So many people are excluded from the economic system, so if you are trying to transform an economy you cannot transform an economy on exclusion because a substantial population are amongst those excluded. The idea that President Ruto has of the bottom-up model is a good one, and I think is one that many other African countries should emulate if they are not doing so.
As the Vice President of Ghana, you have been at the forefront of spearheading digitization, what has its effect been on the economy?
In Ghana, we have really focused on pursuing digitization as an economic strategy. When you look at the world, we are now in the fourth industrial revolution globally which is a digital revolution. It is a revolution that is based on data, and systems. If you are an economy in this world and you don’t digitize you are going to be left behind. Africa has been left behind for too many of these periods, and I believe that digitization is a key to leapfrogging. We digitalize not for its own sake but to solve problems, formalize and build a more inclusive economy, deal with corruption and to provide services to our people more efficiently from the government side. A lot of people were excluded from the economy so we did digital IDs for our people, so we have unique identities for everybody. Once you have unique identities for everyone you will not have ghost workers on the payroll and also sort the voter registry.
We had an issue with the address system in Ghana, and through digitization, we solved the problem. Every part of the country, land or water, mansion or shark you have a unique digital address that we have rolled out in the country. This has solved a big problem as now deliveries can easily be made through e-commerce, and in the instance you are applying for a job you can easily state your address.
On financial inclusion, we have implemented mobile money interoperability. It is not just operability between the mobile companies, but interoperability between the mobile wallet and a bank account which means that every mobile money account practicably has a bank account. We were the first country in Africa to do so. Today it is very easy for someone to open a bank account in Ghana, you have your national ID card, you get onto your mobile phone and then dial a USSD Code and you chose one of the banks and there you go, you have a bank account. We have integrated all our databases which enables us to get value out of our digitization process. Digitization is the way to go for other African countries and with it, we can leapfrog other advanced countries. Today in Ghana, we are the largest medical drone delivery service in the world. We have drones flying all over the country, today we have 100 flights a day delivering medicine.
You have been fronted as a front runner in Ghana’s next election in 2024, what is your take on it?
Right now I am focused on helping my boss President Nana Akufo-Addo fulfill his vision and delivery of his agenda. We have no time to think about that right now until we get to 2024.
What is your message to President Ruto?
I congratulate him on his victory and inauguration. I want to wish him very well, this is a major task and a major burden but God will see him through. He is a very smart man, he has been a deputy president for a while and he knows what to do. We are praying for him and wishing him the very best and we are looking forward to what he does for Kenya.
Fellow Ghanaians, for some time now, my sleep has been highly compressed as I have been digging very deep for this piece. I wouldn’t want to bombard you with somewhat a long write-up, hence I ‘KISS’ it – an acronym in journalism that means Keep It Short and Simple.
‘Uncle, please what’s this card and what is it used for? A question my niece who aspires to be a lawyer asked me barely a week ago. ‘My Lord, please this is an E-Zwich biometric card I requested from Access Bank, through which I receive my monthly NSS allowance, I answered in a rusty voice as if I were a shuddering Aseidu Nketia in the witness box, as I was ill-prepared for further questions about the E-Zwich switch biometric card.
Many young ones like myself will equally be found wanting if they are one or the other way asked about the E-Zwich biometric card. Going through the internet to furnish myself, I found quite some worth sharing info which I would gladly not keep to myself.
The advent of E-Zwich in Ghana cannot be discussed without the Bawumia factor as part of his vision to digitalize and ensure financial system inclusion in Ghana.
According to the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS), ‘the E-Zwich card is an interoperable biometric smart card payment system which connects all financial institutions in Ghana; allowing e-which cardholders to perform banking and retail transactions at the outlets of other e-which financial institutions.
As popularly known by National Service Personnel (NPS) nationwide, the E-Zwich card was an initiative of the GhIPPS and the Bank of Ghana (BoG). In 2007, Dr Bawumia led the introduction of the GHIPSS, a fully owned subsidiary of the Bank of Ghana, while in charge of the BOG’s digital initiatives. Indeed, aiming to develop and oversee an interoperable payment system infrastructure for Ghana’s banks and non-bank financial institutions, GhIPPS was established in May 2007.
Fast forward to August 2019, the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia directed all public sector workers who drew their salaries from the Consolidated Fund to be issued with E-Zwich cards if they did not have them, this was to ensure that there were no phantom employees on the whole public sector payroll, a statement that caught the fancy of almost every concerned Ghanaian.
This is a testament to the vision, competence, and dedication to Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s progressive agenda for the nation. Given the opportunity, he will do more for the country as President.
Black Sherif, a hip-hop artist from Ghana, has been nominated for this year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards in the Best International Flow category. Since breaking into the Ghanaian music scene, The Kweku the Traveller has been persistent, releasing back-to-back smash songs for his audience. The young artist, who was the lone nominee from Ghana, worked with a number of well-known artists, including Burnaboy, R2Bees, Kwesi Arthur, DJ Breezy, and DJ Khaled of American music fame.
Black Sherif, Musician
Prior to this, he made history by becoming the first artist from Ghana to exceed 100 million Boomplay streams. Ghana has missed out on the BET nomination for the past two years, and the young man hopes to follow in the footsteps of Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie, who won the award in 2019.
– Benjamin Epps, Blaxckie, Central Cee, Haviah Mighty, Knucks, and ale Juiice were also in the same category. The BET Hip-hop Awards 2022 are scheduled for October 4, 2022.
Politicians and attorneys alike have been warned by Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah to use caution while speaking out against the judiciary. Speaking on September 12 at the 2022/2023 Ghana Bar Association Annual General Conference in Ho, he cited the 1982 brutal murder of three High Court judges as evidence that words should be chosen carefully. In remarks delivered on his behalf by Justice Jones Dotse (Jsc), the Chief Justice (CJ) criticized politicians for making statements that endanger judges. “We in Ghana have had a chequered history. We have had three distinguished judges of the High Court abducted and killed. We celebrate this incident since it occurred.
Chief Justice Anin Yeboah
“I have made sure if I am in the country, I always attend these functions. As lawyers, we should not make careless comments and remarks that will revisit the occurrences of 1982.
“I, therefore, entreat all of you to be very very circumspect in making very dangerous comments about the judiciary. I am not saying so because I am a judge because once you are in it, you are in it.
“But then comments from members of the bar and senior politicians should be such that we are not…judges are not put up for sale by those who want to cause commotion and confusion in the country,” Justice Jones Dotse stated. On June 30, 1982, a day now known as Martyr’s Day, three High Court Judges and a retired army officer were assassinated in the open at the Bundase Military Range in the Accra Plains. The assassins had kidnapped them that evening.
Justice Fred Poku Sarkodie, Major Rtd., Mr. Justice Kwadwo Agyei Agyepong, and Mrs. Justice Cecilia Koranteng-Addo were the four. John Acquah. John Dramani Mahama, a former president of Ghana, has recently expressed worry over a deterioration in public trust in the court. According to him, restoring public confidence in the judiciary will just require the appointment of a new Chief Justice. “There is therefore the urgent need for the Ghanaian Judiciary to work to win the trust and confidence of the citizenry and erase the widely held perception of hostility and political bias in legal proceedings at the highest courts of the land.
“Unfortunately, we have no hope that the current leadership of our judiciary can lead such a process of change. We can only hope that a new Chief Justice will lead a process to repair the broken image that our judiciary has acquired over the last few years,” Mahama stated during a forum for NDC attorneys on August 28. Attorney General Godfred Dame has described the comments by Mahama as deplorable, coming from someone who has been a former president.
Kennedy Agyapong, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, was in fact invited by the Council to the recent Asogli Te Za, according to information clarified by the Asogli State Council’s secretary (Yam Festival). The MP really requested an invitation to the event, according to a statement from the secretary dated Monday, September 12. He said that the Council was aware of earlier “loose comments” ascribed to the outspoken MP, hence this request was not instantly approved. “Honourable Mr. Kennedy Agyapong requested, through his representatives, for an invitation to attend some programmes of the 2022 Asogli Te Za (Yam Festival).
“The leadership of the Asogli State Council however disapproved of it because of several loose comments and utterances he had made which the Council viewed as unbecoming of an Honourable Member of Ghana’s Parliament,” he stated. In order to further demonstrate his acceptance of responsibility for the error that resulted in the invitation being sent to the MP, Stephen Tetteh also provided a compilation of press items that substantiate the aforementioned comment.
Hon. Kennedy Akompreko Agyapong
See more on “In view of the above, I accept responsibility for the administrative lapse which resulted in the sending of an invitation letter to Mr. Agyapong. I apologize to both the Asogli State Council and Mr. Agyapong,” he stated. Kennedy Agyapong was said to have attended this year’s Te Za (Yam Festival) at the invitation of the Asogli State, according to earlier reports.
Parts of the letter, which was written on Asogli State Council letterhead, read as follows: “The Agbogbomefia Togbe Afede XIV, Asogli State Council and the Festival Planning Committee have the pleasure to invite you to witness the Sitting-In State of Agbogbomefia Togbe Afede XIV on Friday September 9 and the climax of the festival which is the Grand Durbar on Saturday, September 10, 2022, at 10:00 am at Jubilee Park, Ho.” The State Council letter, written to “Honourable Kennedy Ohene Agyapong,” concluded. “We hope that you will make time out of your tight schedule to celebrate with us.”
This letter was also on the back of a report on Friday, September 9, 2022, that indicated that Togbe Afede XIV, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, rejected some gifts presented by Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, MP, as part of his contribution to the people of the Asogli State who were celebrating the annual Yam Festival.
The MP had visited Ho to pay homage to the chiefs and people of the Asogli State.
But the gifts he sent, according to a graphic online reportage, were rejected at the durbar ground. Some sub-chiefs, who served as intermediaries to receive the gift on behalf of Togbe Afede XIV, rejected the gifts and asked the MP to take them away.
A video depicting Mr Agyapong on the durbar grounds had some voices in the background shouting “away”.
