THE Committee for Joint Action (CJA) has gone back to court after losing the initial bid to prohibit the Attorney-General and three television stations from the use of video footage of the committee’s demonstrations.
The CJA’s motion was struck out by an Accra Fast Track High Court last Monday but it filed today (Wednesday) for another motion on notice for interim injunction against the respondents seeking to restrain them from the continued use of its video footage.
The Fast Track High Court will on Friday hear the motion, which was filed by Mr Mahama Ayariga.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice K. A. Ofori-Atta, on Monday struck out the CJA’s motion for want of prosecution and awarded costs of GH¢150 in favour of each of the respondents, namely, the Attorney General, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), TV3 Network Ltd and Metro TV.
The CJA filed the motion to seek among others an order of prohibition to restrain the respondents from the further use of the images of its demonstration to protest against certain government policies in advertisements.
According to the group, the use of the video footage to advocate for a fiscal policy that it was against violated its rights, since the organisation disagreed with the policy.
It, therefore, sought a declaration that the inscriptions accompanying the images used in the advertisements that the demonstrators were unemployed was misleading and wrong.
When the matter came before the court, there was no official from the parties, including the CJA. The CJA was also not represented by any legal counsel.
The Attorney-General was represented by Ms Ama Jantuah Bamful while TV3 and Metro TV were respectively represented by Mr Eugene Glover Tay and Daniyal Abdul-Karim. GBC was represented by Mr Anthony Matthews.
Consequently, counsel for the GBC, Mr Matthews, on behalf of the other counsel prayed the court to strike out the matter in view of the fact that the CJA was not represented.
The matter was stood down for sometime to enable counsel for the CJA to be present but after some time there was still no representation for the CJA and the judge had no option but to grant the application.
An affidavit in support of the motion deposed by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa of Dansoman in Accra said he was the spokesperson of the organisation and had its authority to depose to the affidavit.
It said the group organised a series of demonstrations in various regional capitals in protest against certain government policies and hardships occasioned to the majority of Ghanaians due to taxes imposed by the government.
The respondents, it noted, were using the video footage of the demonstrations organised by the group to advertise for the imposition of a tax on talking on mobile phones, a policy that the applicants were against.
It said that on the said advertisements certain false and misleading statements regarding the employment status of the demonstrators had been made by the respondents.
The organisation said it had the right to ask that the images of the demonstrators should not be associated with messages that were false, misleading and which it did not either believe in or actually openly disagreed with.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
FORMER VOLTA RIVER AUTHORITY BOSS IN COURT
A Principal Administrative Officer of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Mr Joseph Nii Togbor Annan, yesterday told the Accra Fast Track High Court that former Chief Executive Officer, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, was not entitled to any reliefs because he vacated his post.
He also said that the terms of Dr Wereko-Brobby’s employment as enshrined in the VRA Act required that the CEO tendered his resignation letter to the VRA Board and not the President as Dr Wereko-Brobby did.
He said it was Dr Wereko-Brobby who rather owed the VRA six months’ salary in lieu of his failure to give six months’ notice to the VRA on his resignation, as well as rent, a vehicle, furniture and other household items that he took from the official residence of the VRA.
Mr Annan was testifying when the VRA opened its defence in the GH¢220,000 suit instituted by Dr Wereko-Brobby against the authority as his entitlements from the VRA.
Dr Wereko-Brobby was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the VRA on August 24, 2001. He officially assumed office in September that year, but resigned on September 17, 2003.
Apart from the GH¢220,000 being sought for, Dr Wereko-Brobby is asking for interest and also an order to be issued to the VRA to transfer to him ownership of a Volvo saloon car, with registration number GW 2505 T, which was officially assigned to him when he was appointed Chief Executive of the VRA.
Dr Wereko-Brobby said he got separated from the VRA on September 17, 2003 but it took the VRA a considerable time, amid demands from him, before it eventually wrote to him on April 1, 2004 to formally notify him of the separation entitlements.
He said in that letter, cash equivalent of 43 days’ earned leave up to the time of the resignation, totalling GH¢6,100, six months’ salary in the sum of GH¢18,700, gratuity of five years’ salary of GH¢180,000 being the cedi equivalent of fuel allocation from March 31, 2004, and transfer of ownership of the saloon car, which was in his possession, were discussed.
The VRA, he further argued, in its letter of April 1, 2004, agreed to pay 70 per cent of the entitlements by mid April, 2004 and the rest when he vacated its premises on or before the end of May, the same year.
Dr Wereko-Brobby contended that because the VRA could not pay the entitlements as agreed on, he could also not vacate the premises on the agreed date.
He further averred that the delay in the payment persisted into 2005, when he decided to vacate the premises but the defendant had not honoured its obligation, adding that unless compelled by the court, he would not be paid his entitlements.
Led in evidence by Mr F. K. Yeboah, VRA counsel, Mr Annan said apart from the stated terms and conditions of service either Dr Wereko-Brobby or VRA were to give six months’ notice on the termination of appointment or six months’ salary in lieu.
He said under the term, Dr Wereko-Brobby was required to give a maximum of six months’ notice on his separation from the VRA and if he did not do that he ought to pay.
Mr Annan said under the VRA Act, it was the Board members whose resignation should be sent to the President while the CEO’s should be handed over to the Board, which was the appointing body, and for Dr Wereko-Brobby to have handed his resignation to the President was improper.
“The VRA has formally not received a resignation letter from the plaintiff and technically speaking, if you are absent from work for 10 days, it is assumed that you have vacated your post,” he said, and added that the penalty for that was a dismissal.
He said anybody who on his or her own volition retired from the VRA did not benefit from any end-of-service award and in the case of Dr Wereko-Brobby with the exception of his end of year leave, which accrued at the time he resigned, he was not entitled to any other benefits.
The witness said it was not correct for the plaintiff to compare his service to VRA with some of the former CEOs who either resigned or were made redundant and paid entitlements, since he worked for barely two years.
During cross-examination by Mr Akoto Ampaw, counsel for Dr Wereko-Brobby, the witness said that he was not a member of the VRA Board.
He, however, said that he was not privy to minutes of the VRA Board regarding the appointment of Dr Wereko-Brobby.
He also said that the terms of Dr Wereko-Brobby’s employment as enshrined in the VRA Act required that the CEO tendered his resignation letter to the VRA Board and not the President as Dr Wereko-Brobby did.
He said it was Dr Wereko-Brobby who rather owed the VRA six months’ salary in lieu of his failure to give six months’ notice to the VRA on his resignation, as well as rent, a vehicle, furniture and other household items that he took from the official residence of the VRA.
Mr Annan was testifying when the VRA opened its defence in the GH¢220,000 suit instituted by Dr Wereko-Brobby against the authority as his entitlements from the VRA.
Dr Wereko-Brobby was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the VRA on August 24, 2001. He officially assumed office in September that year, but resigned on September 17, 2003.
Apart from the GH¢220,000 being sought for, Dr Wereko-Brobby is asking for interest and also an order to be issued to the VRA to transfer to him ownership of a Volvo saloon car, with registration number GW 2505 T, which was officially assigned to him when he was appointed Chief Executive of the VRA.
Dr Wereko-Brobby said he got separated from the VRA on September 17, 2003 but it took the VRA a considerable time, amid demands from him, before it eventually wrote to him on April 1, 2004 to formally notify him of the separation entitlements.
He said in that letter, cash equivalent of 43 days’ earned leave up to the time of the resignation, totalling GH¢6,100, six months’ salary in the sum of GH¢18,700, gratuity of five years’ salary of GH¢180,000 being the cedi equivalent of fuel allocation from March 31, 2004, and transfer of ownership of the saloon car, which was in his possession, were discussed.
The VRA, he further argued, in its letter of April 1, 2004, agreed to pay 70 per cent of the entitlements by mid April, 2004 and the rest when he vacated its premises on or before the end of May, the same year.
Dr Wereko-Brobby contended that because the VRA could not pay the entitlements as agreed on, he could also not vacate the premises on the agreed date.
He further averred that the delay in the payment persisted into 2005, when he decided to vacate the premises but the defendant had not honoured its obligation, adding that unless compelled by the court, he would not be paid his entitlements.
Led in evidence by Mr F. K. Yeboah, VRA counsel, Mr Annan said apart from the stated terms and conditions of service either Dr Wereko-Brobby or VRA were to give six months’ notice on the termination of appointment or six months’ salary in lieu.
He said under the term, Dr Wereko-Brobby was required to give a maximum of six months’ notice on his separation from the VRA and if he did not do that he ought to pay.
Mr Annan said under the VRA Act, it was the Board members whose resignation should be sent to the President while the CEO’s should be handed over to the Board, which was the appointing body, and for Dr Wereko-Brobby to have handed his resignation to the President was improper.
“The VRA has formally not received a resignation letter from the plaintiff and technically speaking, if you are absent from work for 10 days, it is assumed that you have vacated your post,” he said, and added that the penalty for that was a dismissal.
He said anybody who on his or her own volition retired from the VRA did not benefit from any end-of-service award and in the case of Dr Wereko-Brobby with the exception of his end of year leave, which accrued at the time he resigned, he was not entitled to any other benefits.
The witness said it was not correct for the plaintiff to compare his service to VRA with some of the former CEOs who either resigned or were made redundant and paid entitlements, since he worked for barely two years.
During cross-examination by Mr Akoto Ampaw, counsel for Dr Wereko-Brobby, the witness said that he was not a member of the VRA Board.
He, however, said that he was not privy to minutes of the VRA Board regarding the appointment of Dr Wereko-Brobby.
BRITISH PAEDOPHILE JAILED 4 YRS
THOMAS Tichler, the 57-year-old Briton who was accused of causing harm and indecently assaulting a three-year-old girl, was yesterday sentenced to four years’ imprisonment by an Accra circuit court
The court, presided over by Mrs Georgina Mensah-Datsa, convicted the accused on both counts and sentenced him to four and two years respectively to run concurrently effective November 2, 2007, when he was remanded in custody.
The court took into consideration the fact that Tichler was assaulted by the father of the girl while the physical injury to the victim was not permanent.
Tichler was said to have inserted his fingers into the victim’s vagina but he denied the offence and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A total of seven prosecution witnesses including the victim, her parents, the victim’s two siblings, a medical doctor and the investigator in the case testified against Tichler.
Tichler testified and denied any wrongdoing and called two witnesses to testify for him.
The facts of the case were that Tichler, who arrived in Ghana on September 25, last year for a three-month attachment with the Overseas Voluntary Service (VSO), committed the offence at the residence of the victim on October 13, 2007, barely a week after he had arrived in the country.
According to the prosecution, Tichler visited the victim’s father at North Legon, near Redco Flats, on October 13, 2007 and on reaching there, the victim’s father left the victim and her two siblings in the care of Tichler in order to purchase some items from town.
Tichler engaged the victim and her two siblings, aged eight and six, at the sitting room but later managed to engage the victim alone and succeeded in inserting his fingers into her vagina.
Not quiet long after the incident, the victim’s mother arrived from town and just as she entered the kitchen, Tichler followed her and requested for water to wash his hands.
Later, the victim went to her mother and said she wanted to urinate and while helping her, the mother noticed blood stains in the victim’s panties.
The victim mentioned the accused person as the one who inserted his fingers into her vagina when she was questioned by her mother.
Tichler was arrested and handed over to the Legon police.
The victim was later taken to hospital where she was examined, treated and discharged.
According to the court, the evidence of the little girl, which was taken in camera, was spontaneous and was not disjointed to seem as if it had been rehearsed as suggested by the defence.
It said the girl’s story was consistent, articulate and honest and found the convict’s act of carrying the girl on his shoulders and putting her down on the sofa were very contemporaneous with the time of the commission of the offence.
The court, presided over by Mrs Georgina Mensah-Datsa, convicted the accused on both counts and sentenced him to four and two years respectively to run concurrently effective November 2, 2007, when he was remanded in custody.
The court took into consideration the fact that Tichler was assaulted by the father of the girl while the physical injury to the victim was not permanent.
Tichler was said to have inserted his fingers into the victim’s vagina but he denied the offence and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A total of seven prosecution witnesses including the victim, her parents, the victim’s two siblings, a medical doctor and the investigator in the case testified against Tichler.
Tichler testified and denied any wrongdoing and called two witnesses to testify for him.
The facts of the case were that Tichler, who arrived in Ghana on September 25, last year for a three-month attachment with the Overseas Voluntary Service (VSO), committed the offence at the residence of the victim on October 13, 2007, barely a week after he had arrived in the country.
According to the prosecution, Tichler visited the victim’s father at North Legon, near Redco Flats, on October 13, 2007 and on reaching there, the victim’s father left the victim and her two siblings in the care of Tichler in order to purchase some items from town.
Tichler engaged the victim and her two siblings, aged eight and six, at the sitting room but later managed to engage the victim alone and succeeded in inserting his fingers into her vagina.
Not quiet long after the incident, the victim’s mother arrived from town and just as she entered the kitchen, Tichler followed her and requested for water to wash his hands.
Later, the victim went to her mother and said she wanted to urinate and while helping her, the mother noticed blood stains in the victim’s panties.
The victim mentioned the accused person as the one who inserted his fingers into her vagina when she was questioned by her mother.
Tichler was arrested and handed over to the Legon police.
The victim was later taken to hospital where she was examined, treated and discharged.
According to the court, the evidence of the little girl, which was taken in camera, was spontaneous and was not disjointed to seem as if it had been rehearsed as suggested by the defence.
It said the girl’s story was consistent, articulate and honest and found the convict’s act of carrying the girl on his shoulders and putting her down on the sofa were very contemporaneous with the time of the commission of the offence.
COURT THROWS OUT MOTION BY COMMITTEE FOR JOINT ACTION
A motion filed by the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) seeking an order to prohibit the Attorney-General and three television stations from the use of video footage of demonstrations organised by the organisation was struck out by an Accra Fast Track High Court for want of prosecution.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice K. A. Ofori-Atta, awarded costs of GH¢150 in favour of each of the respondents, namely, the Attorney General, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), TV3 Network Ltd and Metro TV.
The CJA filed the motion to seek among others an order of prohibition to restrain the respondents from the further use of the images of its demonstration to protest against certain government policies in advertisements.
According to the group, the use of the video footage to advocate for a fiscal policy that it was against violated its rights, since the organisation disagreed with the policy.
It, therefore, sought a declaration that the inscriptions accompanying the images used in the advertisements that the demonstrators were unemployed was misleading and wrong.
However, when the matter came before the court yesterday there was no official from the parties, including the CJA. The CJA was also not represented by any legal counsel.
The Attorney-General was represented by Ms Ama Jantuah Bamful while TV3 and Metro TV were respectively represented by Mr Eugene Glover Tay and Daniyal Abdul-Karim. GBC was represented by Mr Anthony Matthews.
Consequently, counsel for the GBC, Mr Matthews, on behalf of the other counsel prayed the court to strike out the matter in view of the fact that the CJA was not represented.
The matter was stood down for sometime to enable counsel for the CJA to be present but after some time there was still no representation for the CJA and the judge had no option but to grant the application.
An affidavit in support of the motion deposed by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa of Dansoman in Accra said he was the spokesperson of the organisation and had its authority to depose to the affidavit.
It said the group organised a series of demonstrations in various regional capitals in protest against certain government policies and hardships occasioned to the majority of Ghanaians due to taxes imposed by the government.
The respondents, it noted, were using the video footage of the demonstrations organised by the group to advertise for the imposition of a tax on talking on mobile phones, a policy that the applicants were against.
It said that on the said advertisements certain false and misleading statements regarding the employment status of the demonstrators had been made by the respondents.
The organisation said it had the right to ask that the images of the demonstrators should not be associated with messages that were false, misleading and which it did not either believe in or actually openly disagreed with.
The court, presided over by Mr Justice K. A. Ofori-Atta, awarded costs of GH¢150 in favour of each of the respondents, namely, the Attorney General, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), TV3 Network Ltd and Metro TV.
The CJA filed the motion to seek among others an order of prohibition to restrain the respondents from the further use of the images of its demonstration to protest against certain government policies in advertisements.
According to the group, the use of the video footage to advocate for a fiscal policy that it was against violated its rights, since the organisation disagreed with the policy.
It, therefore, sought a declaration that the inscriptions accompanying the images used in the advertisements that the demonstrators were unemployed was misleading and wrong.
However, when the matter came before the court yesterday there was no official from the parties, including the CJA. The CJA was also not represented by any legal counsel.
The Attorney-General was represented by Ms Ama Jantuah Bamful while TV3 and Metro TV were respectively represented by Mr Eugene Glover Tay and Daniyal Abdul-Karim. GBC was represented by Mr Anthony Matthews.
Consequently, counsel for the GBC, Mr Matthews, on behalf of the other counsel prayed the court to strike out the matter in view of the fact that the CJA was not represented.
The matter was stood down for sometime to enable counsel for the CJA to be present but after some time there was still no representation for the CJA and the judge had no option but to grant the application.
An affidavit in support of the motion deposed by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa of Dansoman in Accra said he was the spokesperson of the organisation and had its authority to depose to the affidavit.
It said the group organised a series of demonstrations in various regional capitals in protest against certain government policies and hardships occasioned to the majority of Ghanaians due to taxes imposed by the government.
The respondents, it noted, were using the video footage of the demonstrations organised by the group to advertise for the imposition of a tax on talking on mobile phones, a policy that the applicants were against.
It said that on the said advertisements certain false and misleading statements regarding the employment status of the demonstrators had been made by the respondents.
The organisation said it had the right to ask that the images of the demonstrators should not be associated with messages that were false, misleading and which it did not either believe in or actually openly disagreed with.
Friday, February 15, 2008
CHILD LABOUR IN GHANA –THE MISCONCEPTION
RECENTLY, the media, both local and international, have spurned out stories about child labour in Ghana’s cocoa growing areas. Following this, there have been unwarranted calls by some interest groups for the boycott of the finest cocoa beans produced in the world.
There is no doubt that there are cases of child labour in the country, however, the picture painted about the kind of assistance or work done by children on cocoa farms was misplaced, because child labour is employed rather in subsistence agriculture.
In the urban (informal sector), other forms of the phenomenon equally exist.
As someone who grew up on a cocoa farm and from a typical cocoa growing community in Ghana, I am in this article attempting to lay bare the myth or as it were, the truth about the use of children on cocoa farms. And whether what pertains qualifies or fits the tag ‘child labour’ vis-à-vis other sectors, in contrast with what generally pertains in the rest of the world.
We should not allow such self-seeking people to throw dust into the eyes of the world to paint a gloomy picture about the future of the youth in this country, because what pertains is a complete misunderstanding of child labour.
As a child, it was always fun to accompany parents or relatives to the cocoa farm, especially when it was time to crack the pods to extract the beans.
My late uncle, under whose tutelage I grew up, had many wives as well as many children who assisted him on his vast cocoa farms. That work, for us children, was seasonal, because weeding or general work was done at a time that school was on long vacation. We would all leave the town for the village to assist, and what was interesting was the rats and other animals that we trapped during our activities. I reminisce being a poor shooter of the catapult, and I was always envious of my cousins who were good at shooting at birds and butchering the rats when it came to smoking them out.
While on vacation at the village, it was all work and no play and my uncle ensured none of us fell sick or got injured. He cautioned us to be careful and he bought some basic first aid drugs such as paracetamol, APC, codeine and the others which I cannot readily recollect.
He made sure that we worked, but that did not compromise our education in any way . All of us were in school with the elders among us in higher levels of the educational ladder at that time. Once you have not attained a certain standard of self-actualisation, going on vacation to the village was a must and something we relished so much. As soon as school re-opened, work on the cocoa farms ceased and off we left for the town to continue with our schooling.
In those days, that was the general practice in the villages of the Sefwi area where the bulk of Ghana’s cocoa is still produced. Even tenants who worked on such farms allowed their children to go to school, except a few who did not heed all advice.
The work of children involved general weeding, collection of cocoa pods to a cracking centre or point and helping in the drying of cocoa beans. I remember that when my uncle wanted us to have some money of our own, he would pay us extra for conveying the dry beans to the shed, and this we cherished, because we got extra income to buy other things for ourselves. After the cocoa beans had been fermented, we assisted in carting them to the dry beds.
At some point in time, I remember that as children, we engaged in what is called ‘nnoboa’ (akan), literally translated as “help one another”. By this system, a group of youngsters, usually siblings or friends would arrange for weeding and charge fees for very small cocoa farms which were not too overgrown with weeds.
This is not to say that what I have said here was the general trend in what is called child labour on cocoa farms if that is so, because some children obviously did not have the chance to go to school and so spent their entire lives on the farms.
It is, therefore, necessary to look at what actually constitutes child labour in the eyes of comity of nations and do some analyses on whether Ghana is being treated fairly.
From my point of view, working on cocoa farms was generally done by children or relatives of farmers on a subsistence basis and neither compromised nor harmed the education of those involved. The picture has been painted as if the practice exists only in poor countries or communities such as Ghana.
This is not to say that I am in support of the practice, especially since the 1990s when every country in the world, except Somalia and the United States have become signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
The CRC provides the strongest, most consistent international legal language prohibiting illegal child labour, although it does not make child labour illegal. The UNICEF State of the World’s Children’s Report (1997) lists four "myths" about child labour. That the practice is only a problem in developing countries. But in fact, children routinely work in all industrialised countries, and are engaged in hazardous forms of child labour. They are in many countries, including the US, for example, where it is said that children are employed in agriculture, a high proportion of them from immigrant or ethnic-minority families.
A 1990 survey of Mexican-American children working on the farms of New York State showed that almost half had worked in fields still wet with pesticides and over a third had themselves been sprayed.
Child labour is the employment of a child under an age determined by law or custom. This practice is considered exploitative by many countries and international organisations, hence the vain attack on Ghana.
Child labour was utilised to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the beginning of universal education, universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during industrialisation, and with the emergence of the concepts of labour rights and workers as well as children's rights.
Ghana’s constitution is in accordance with international conventions which define a child as those persons aged 18 years and under.
However, a child and childhood are defined differently by different cultures. A child is not necessarily delineated by a fixed age, that is why social scientists point out that children’s abilities and levels of maturity vary so much that defining a child’s maturity by calendar age can be misleading.
It is in the light of this that we should try to avoid confusion, when writing or speaking about child labour.
Generally speaking, child labour is about a work for children which, in turn, harms them or exploits them in some way, either physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking their access to education.
Not all work is bad for children though. That is why some social scientists point out that some kinds of work may be completely unobjectionable except for one thing about the work that makes it exploitative.
As UNICEF’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report puts it, "Children’s work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial work - promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest — at the other.
In 2000, the ILO estimated that 246 million child workers, aged five and 17 were involved in child labour, of which 171 million were involved in work that, by its nature, is hazardous to their safety, physical or mental health, and moral development. Moreover, some 8.4 million children were engaged in so-called 'unconditional' worst forms of child labour, which include forced and bonded labour, the use of children in armed conflict, trafficking in children and commercial sexual exploitation.
According to a 1998 study by the ILO, there were 61 per cent child labourers in Asia, 32 per cent in Africa, and seven per cent in Latin America, one per cent in the US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations. In Asia, 22 per cent of the workforce is reported to be children. In Latin America, 17 per cent of the workforce is also children. The proportion of child labourers has been found to vary a lot among countries, and even regions inside those countries.
The UNICEF 1997 State of the World’s Children Report said in Africa, one child in three is at work, and in Latin America, one child in five works. In these continents, only a tiny proportion of child workers are involved in the formal sector, and the vast majority of work is for their families, in homes, in the fields or on the streets.
Child labour is very common, and that can be factory work, mining or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food or apparel), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants, where they may also work as waiters. Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as polishing shoes, pounding fufu in chop bars and cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the informal sector, selling on the street, or child domestic work hidden away in houses far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny.
E. P. Thompson in “The Making of the English Working Class”, (Penguin, 1968), said in the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four years were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.
Poverty is widely considered the top reason why children work at inappropriate jobs for their ages. But there are other reasons such as family expectations and traditions as I have indicated in the case of the Ghanaian farmer, abuse of the child as in the case of house helps or maid servants (as they are called in Ghana and domestic work in other places) and public opinion that downplays the risk of early work for children.
The current situation in poor countries is that poor families often rely on the labour of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not in the industrial sector.
By all standards, the kind of labour supplied by most Ghanaian children on cocoa farms cannot be classified as child labour as per the standards of the ILO and other bodies. Probably, a look at what pertains in some homes and on the streets regarding kayayei, shoe shine boys and the lot paints a gloomy picture for the youth of this country.
Beyond compassion, we should consider who today’s children will become in the future. Between today and the year 2020, the clear indication is that the vast majority of new workers, citizens and new consumers whose skills and needs will build the world’s economy and society will come from developing countries. Over that 12-year period or so, it is estimated that more than 730 million people will join the world’s workforce more than all the other people employed in today's most developed nations.
According to research by Population Action International, more than 90 per cent of these new workers will be from developing nations. Governments of the developing economies should devised programmes to emancipate the people.
Programmes to prop up increased family incomes, education that helps children learn skills which will help them earn a living, social services which help children and families survive such crises as diseases, or loss of home and shelter. Above all, families should control fertility so that they are not burdened by children. Poverty alleviation programmes should be the target, because so far as poverty pertains, child labour will continue to be with us.
There is no doubt that there are cases of child labour in the country, however, the picture painted about the kind of assistance or work done by children on cocoa farms was misplaced, because child labour is employed rather in subsistence agriculture.
In the urban (informal sector), other forms of the phenomenon equally exist.
As someone who grew up on a cocoa farm and from a typical cocoa growing community in Ghana, I am in this article attempting to lay bare the myth or as it were, the truth about the use of children on cocoa farms. And whether what pertains qualifies or fits the tag ‘child labour’ vis-à-vis other sectors, in contrast with what generally pertains in the rest of the world.
We should not allow such self-seeking people to throw dust into the eyes of the world to paint a gloomy picture about the future of the youth in this country, because what pertains is a complete misunderstanding of child labour.
As a child, it was always fun to accompany parents or relatives to the cocoa farm, especially when it was time to crack the pods to extract the beans.
My late uncle, under whose tutelage I grew up, had many wives as well as many children who assisted him on his vast cocoa farms. That work, for us children, was seasonal, because weeding or general work was done at a time that school was on long vacation. We would all leave the town for the village to assist, and what was interesting was the rats and other animals that we trapped during our activities. I reminisce being a poor shooter of the catapult, and I was always envious of my cousins who were good at shooting at birds and butchering the rats when it came to smoking them out.
While on vacation at the village, it was all work and no play and my uncle ensured none of us fell sick or got injured. He cautioned us to be careful and he bought some basic first aid drugs such as paracetamol, APC, codeine and the others which I cannot readily recollect.
He made sure that we worked, but that did not compromise our education in any way . All of us were in school with the elders among us in higher levels of the educational ladder at that time. Once you have not attained a certain standard of self-actualisation, going on vacation to the village was a must and something we relished so much. As soon as school re-opened, work on the cocoa farms ceased and off we left for the town to continue with our schooling.
In those days, that was the general practice in the villages of the Sefwi area where the bulk of Ghana’s cocoa is still produced. Even tenants who worked on such farms allowed their children to go to school, except a few who did not heed all advice.
The work of children involved general weeding, collection of cocoa pods to a cracking centre or point and helping in the drying of cocoa beans. I remember that when my uncle wanted us to have some money of our own, he would pay us extra for conveying the dry beans to the shed, and this we cherished, because we got extra income to buy other things for ourselves. After the cocoa beans had been fermented, we assisted in carting them to the dry beds.
At some point in time, I remember that as children, we engaged in what is called ‘nnoboa’ (akan), literally translated as “help one another”. By this system, a group of youngsters, usually siblings or friends would arrange for weeding and charge fees for very small cocoa farms which were not too overgrown with weeds.
This is not to say that what I have said here was the general trend in what is called child labour on cocoa farms if that is so, because some children obviously did not have the chance to go to school and so spent their entire lives on the farms.
It is, therefore, necessary to look at what actually constitutes child labour in the eyes of comity of nations and do some analyses on whether Ghana is being treated fairly.
From my point of view, working on cocoa farms was generally done by children or relatives of farmers on a subsistence basis and neither compromised nor harmed the education of those involved. The picture has been painted as if the practice exists only in poor countries or communities such as Ghana.
This is not to say that I am in support of the practice, especially since the 1990s when every country in the world, except Somalia and the United States have become signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
The CRC provides the strongest, most consistent international legal language prohibiting illegal child labour, although it does not make child labour illegal. The UNICEF State of the World’s Children’s Report (1997) lists four "myths" about child labour. That the practice is only a problem in developing countries. But in fact, children routinely work in all industrialised countries, and are engaged in hazardous forms of child labour. They are in many countries, including the US, for example, where it is said that children are employed in agriculture, a high proportion of them from immigrant or ethnic-minority families.
A 1990 survey of Mexican-American children working on the farms of New York State showed that almost half had worked in fields still wet with pesticides and over a third had themselves been sprayed.
Child labour is the employment of a child under an age determined by law or custom. This practice is considered exploitative by many countries and international organisations, hence the vain attack on Ghana.
Child labour was utilised to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the beginning of universal education, universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during industrialisation, and with the emergence of the concepts of labour rights and workers as well as children's rights.
Ghana’s constitution is in accordance with international conventions which define a child as those persons aged 18 years and under.
However, a child and childhood are defined differently by different cultures. A child is not necessarily delineated by a fixed age, that is why social scientists point out that children’s abilities and levels of maturity vary so much that defining a child’s maturity by calendar age can be misleading.
It is in the light of this that we should try to avoid confusion, when writing or speaking about child labour.
Generally speaking, child labour is about a work for children which, in turn, harms them or exploits them in some way, either physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking their access to education.
Not all work is bad for children though. That is why some social scientists point out that some kinds of work may be completely unobjectionable except for one thing about the work that makes it exploitative.
As UNICEF’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report puts it, "Children’s work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial work - promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest — at the other.
In 2000, the ILO estimated that 246 million child workers, aged five and 17 were involved in child labour, of which 171 million were involved in work that, by its nature, is hazardous to their safety, physical or mental health, and moral development. Moreover, some 8.4 million children were engaged in so-called 'unconditional' worst forms of child labour, which include forced and bonded labour, the use of children in armed conflict, trafficking in children and commercial sexual exploitation.
According to a 1998 study by the ILO, there were 61 per cent child labourers in Asia, 32 per cent in Africa, and seven per cent in Latin America, one per cent in the US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations. In Asia, 22 per cent of the workforce is reported to be children. In Latin America, 17 per cent of the workforce is also children. The proportion of child labourers has been found to vary a lot among countries, and even regions inside those countries.
The UNICEF 1997 State of the World’s Children Report said in Africa, one child in three is at work, and in Latin America, one child in five works. In these continents, only a tiny proportion of child workers are involved in the formal sector, and the vast majority of work is for their families, in homes, in the fields or on the streets.
Child labour is very common, and that can be factory work, mining or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food or apparel), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants, where they may also work as waiters. Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as polishing shoes, pounding fufu in chop bars and cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the informal sector, selling on the street, or child domestic work hidden away in houses far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny.
E. P. Thompson in “The Making of the English Working Class”, (Penguin, 1968), said in the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four years were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.
Poverty is widely considered the top reason why children work at inappropriate jobs for their ages. But there are other reasons such as family expectations and traditions as I have indicated in the case of the Ghanaian farmer, abuse of the child as in the case of house helps or maid servants (as they are called in Ghana and domestic work in other places) and public opinion that downplays the risk of early work for children.
The current situation in poor countries is that poor families often rely on the labour of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not in the industrial sector.
By all standards, the kind of labour supplied by most Ghanaian children on cocoa farms cannot be classified as child labour as per the standards of the ILO and other bodies. Probably, a look at what pertains in some homes and on the streets regarding kayayei, shoe shine boys and the lot paints a gloomy picture for the youth of this country.
Beyond compassion, we should consider who today’s children will become in the future. Between today and the year 2020, the clear indication is that the vast majority of new workers, citizens and new consumers whose skills and needs will build the world’s economy and society will come from developing countries. Over that 12-year period or so, it is estimated that more than 730 million people will join the world’s workforce more than all the other people employed in today's most developed nations.
According to research by Population Action International, more than 90 per cent of these new workers will be from developing nations. Governments of the developing economies should devised programmes to emancipate the people.
Programmes to prop up increased family incomes, education that helps children learn skills which will help them earn a living, social services which help children and families survive such crises as diseases, or loss of home and shelter. Above all, families should control fertility so that they are not burdened by children. Poverty alleviation programmes should be the target, because so far as poverty pertains, child labour will continue to be with us.
POWER OUTAGE AFFECTS COURTS IN ACCRA
A power outage at the Fast Track High Court today led to the adjournment of the trial of Thomas Osei, the man who rammed his car into the President's car last year.
Today’s power failure was one of the many occurrences at the court and did not affect only that case but many other cases which were slated for hearing in the fast track division of the High Court.
There seem to be no solution to the problem because the headquarters of the Judicial Service, which houses the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, did not have a standby generator.
The issue of power seems to be a major problem for the courts in Accra, including the Supreme Court, and on one occasion a generator had to be procured to ensure the hearing of a high-profile case.
Investigations conducted by the Daily Graphic indicated that the majority of the courts at the Cocoa Affairs courts complex had been without electricity since October last year.
As a result, justice delivery is affected as the judges are in most cases compelled to adjourn some cases because of the excessive heat coupled with appalling conditions in the courtrooms.
The electricity issue is just one of the many problems of the judiciary.
In the case of Thomas Osei, he was brought to court but the case had to be adjourned to February 22, 2008.
Osei’s counsel, Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, and the acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Gertrude Aikins, were also in court.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High Court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
Today’s power failure was one of the many occurrences at the court and did not affect only that case but many other cases which were slated for hearing in the fast track division of the High Court.
There seem to be no solution to the problem because the headquarters of the Judicial Service, which houses the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, did not have a standby generator.
The issue of power seems to be a major problem for the courts in Accra, including the Supreme Court, and on one occasion a generator had to be procured to ensure the hearing of a high-profile case.
Investigations conducted by the Daily Graphic indicated that the majority of the courts at the Cocoa Affairs courts complex had been without electricity since October last year.
As a result, justice delivery is affected as the judges are in most cases compelled to adjourn some cases because of the excessive heat coupled with appalling conditions in the courtrooms.
The electricity issue is just one of the many problems of the judiciary.
In the case of Thomas Osei, he was brought to court but the case had to be adjourned to February 22, 2008.
Osei’s counsel, Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, and the acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Gertrude Aikins, were also in court.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High Court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
SIXTY KILOGRAMMES OF COCAINE BURNT
SIXTY kilogrammes of cocaine which were concealed in 60 cans and labelled as GhanaFresh Palmnut Cream concentrate were today burnt on the orders of an Accra Fast Track High Court presided over by Mr Justice K. A. Acquaye.
The destruction was done in the full glare of representatives from the media, the Attorney-General’s Office, the Chief Registrar of the Judicial Service, the Ghana Standards Board and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The substance, with a street value of $4 million, was meant for export to the United Kingdom but was intercepted in October, last year by security operatives at the Kotoka International Airport.
Two suspects, Emmanuel Kwaku Darkey, the exporter, and Kirk Patrick Akoto Bekoe, a freight forwarder, were arrested in connection with the substance but Bekoe was later released and used as a prosecution witness in the trial of Darkey.
Darkey is facing one count of attempted exportation of narcotic drugs but he has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is on remand.
The court’s order for the destruction of the substance was after a police investigator, Detective Sergeant Joseph Acquaye, had tendered it in evidence during his evidence-in-chief.
Sgt Acquaye said he was (and still is) an investigator at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) Headquarters and on October 13, last year, he was at home when his superior officer asked him to report to the office.
On reaching the office, he said, the accused person and the exhibits were handed over to him for investigations by his superior and that at a certain stage he forwarded the exhibits to the Ghana Standards Board for forensic examination.
According to the facts of the case, the accused and Bekoe were arrested at the Aviance Cargo Village at the Kotoka International Airport where each of the cans contained a kilogramme of pure cocaine when it was weighed and tested in the presence of the suspects.
Without tampering with the lids of the cans, the perpetrators had filled the cans with the cocaine in white polythene and resealed them.
Darkey, who is based in London, claimed he came to Ghana to purchase vegetables for export to London and that the consignment was given to him by another exporter, Michael Osei, to add to his.
When asked whether he knew the contents before accepting them, he was said to have answered in the negative and as to why he accepted the goods, particularly when there were security alerts for travellers and exporters not to accept any parcels or goods from anyone without knowing their contents, Darkey admitted he acted stupidly.
Mr William Kpobi is the prosecutor while the accused person is being represented by Mr Atta Akyea.
Further hearing has been adjourned to February 22, 2008.
The destruction was done in the full glare of representatives from the media, the Attorney-General’s Office, the Chief Registrar of the Judicial Service, the Ghana Standards Board and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The substance, with a street value of $4 million, was meant for export to the United Kingdom but was intercepted in October, last year by security operatives at the Kotoka International Airport.
Two suspects, Emmanuel Kwaku Darkey, the exporter, and Kirk Patrick Akoto Bekoe, a freight forwarder, were arrested in connection with the substance but Bekoe was later released and used as a prosecution witness in the trial of Darkey.
Darkey is facing one count of attempted exportation of narcotic drugs but he has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is on remand.
The court’s order for the destruction of the substance was after a police investigator, Detective Sergeant Joseph Acquaye, had tendered it in evidence during his evidence-in-chief.
Sgt Acquaye said he was (and still is) an investigator at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) Headquarters and on October 13, last year, he was at home when his superior officer asked him to report to the office.
On reaching the office, he said, the accused person and the exhibits were handed over to him for investigations by his superior and that at a certain stage he forwarded the exhibits to the Ghana Standards Board for forensic examination.
According to the facts of the case, the accused and Bekoe were arrested at the Aviance Cargo Village at the Kotoka International Airport where each of the cans contained a kilogramme of pure cocaine when it was weighed and tested in the presence of the suspects.
Without tampering with the lids of the cans, the perpetrators had filled the cans with the cocaine in white polythene and resealed them.
Darkey, who is based in London, claimed he came to Ghana to purchase vegetables for export to London and that the consignment was given to him by another exporter, Michael Osei, to add to his.
When asked whether he knew the contents before accepting them, he was said to have answered in the negative and as to why he accepted the goods, particularly when there were security alerts for travellers and exporters not to accept any parcels or goods from anyone without knowing their contents, Darkey admitted he acted stupidly.
Mr William Kpobi is the prosecutor while the accused person is being represented by Mr Atta Akyea.
Further hearing has been adjourned to February 22, 2008.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
GIMPA RECTOR OPENS DEFENCE
THE Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Dr Stephen Adei, on Wednesday opened his defence at the Accra Fast Track High Court in the case in which Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr is seeking an order from the court to restrain him from holding himself out as such and as a professor of the institute.
The Rector said his first appointment letter, which he received on January 1, 2000, made him the chief executive officer (CEO) of GIMPA for a five-year tenure, subject to renewal for only another term of two years.
Dr Adei said after the expiration of his first term of office on December 31, 2005, the President did not remove him from office and he continued to act in that capacity until a new Governing Council was formed.
Therefore, he said, between December 2004 and June 2005 he was still the CEO of GIMPA.
Mr Faibille wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and he should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it is vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he has not been re-appointed as rector.
According to Dr Adei, since January 1, 2000 he had been a member of the GIMPA Governing Council in his capacity as the CEO and that he was present at a meeting of the council in June 2005, during which the members discussed the renewal of his appointment, since he had been acting for six months.
Hearing continues on February 19, 2008.
The Rector said his first appointment letter, which he received on January 1, 2000, made him the chief executive officer (CEO) of GIMPA for a five-year tenure, subject to renewal for only another term of two years.
Dr Adei said after the expiration of his first term of office on December 31, 2005, the President did not remove him from office and he continued to act in that capacity until a new Governing Council was formed.
Therefore, he said, between December 2004 and June 2005 he was still the CEO of GIMPA.
Mr Faibille wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and he should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it is vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he has not been re-appointed as rector.
According to Dr Adei, since January 1, 2000 he had been a member of the GIMPA Governing Council in his capacity as the CEO and that he was present at a meeting of the council in June 2005, during which the members discussed the renewal of his appointment, since he had been acting for six months.
Hearing continues on February 19, 2008.
WULOMO, 2 OTHERS IN WEE CASE
THREE persons, including the Wulomo of the Atukpai Division of Accra, Numo Oku, have been put before the Accra circuit court for allegedly attempting to export 178 kilogrammes of dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp to the United Kingdom through the Kotoka International Airport.
The substances were concealed in 10 plywood boards which were taken to the Aviance Cargo Village by Anthony Okine, a welder, and Numo Oku and given to Braima Salifu, a forwarding agent, for processing for export.
However, during the scanning of the consignment, they were found to contain the compressed dried leaves.
Okine and Salifu were remanded to appear again on February 27, while a bench warrant was issued for the arrest of Numo Oku, who is said to be at large.
They are facing a charge of possession of narcotic drugs without lawful authority but their pleas were not taken.
The facts of the case, as narrated by Superintendent J.K. Abraham, are that on February 6, this year, Okine and Numo Oku went to the cargo village to export 10 plywood boards to the UK.
They handed the consignment to Salifu to process the necessary documents to facilitate the export but during the scanning of the boards, they were found to contain some foreign materials.
Consequently, when one of the plywood was cut open by Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) operatives, it was found to contain six slabs of dried leaves suspected to be cannabis. That prompted the examination of the rest, which were also found to contain similar substances.
Supt Abraham said Okine and Salifu were arrested but Numo Oku managed to escape.
He said the exhibits had been taken to the Ghana Standards Board for examination and analysis.
The substances were concealed in 10 plywood boards which were taken to the Aviance Cargo Village by Anthony Okine, a welder, and Numo Oku and given to Braima Salifu, a forwarding agent, for processing for export.
However, during the scanning of the consignment, they were found to contain the compressed dried leaves.
Okine and Salifu were remanded to appear again on February 27, while a bench warrant was issued for the arrest of Numo Oku, who is said to be at large.
They are facing a charge of possession of narcotic drugs without lawful authority but their pleas were not taken.
The facts of the case, as narrated by Superintendent J.K. Abraham, are that on February 6, this year, Okine and Numo Oku went to the cargo village to export 10 plywood boards to the UK.
They handed the consignment to Salifu to process the necessary documents to facilitate the export but during the scanning of the boards, they were found to contain some foreign materials.
Consequently, when one of the plywood was cut open by Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) operatives, it was found to contain six slabs of dried leaves suspected to be cannabis. That prompted the examination of the rest, which were also found to contain similar substances.
Supt Abraham said Okine and Salifu were arrested but Numo Oku managed to escape.
He said the exhibits had been taken to the Ghana Standards Board for examination and analysis.
Friday, February 08, 2008
ACCUSED COULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN A COMA-POLICE WITNESS
A prosecution witness today told the court that the 0.41 per cent alcohol level found in the breath of Thomas Osei, the man who rammed his car into the President's car last year, could have put the accused person in a coma and not be able to drive.
The witness, Lance Corporal Eric Asare of the Airport MTTU further denied that the alcosensor, which he used to test the alcohol level of the accused person was defective since he regularly serviced it.
Testifying under cross-examination by Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, counsel for the accused person, the witness indicated that the legal alcohol limit was 0.08 per cent but did not think that anybody with 0.41 per cent would be totally in a coma and not be able to do anything.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007 and remanded.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High Court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
Led in his evidence by the acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ms Gertrude Aikins, Lance Corporal Asare told the court that he was not present when the accident occurred but was in the charge office as a standby investigator when his superior officer called to inform him that the President's car had been involved in a serious accident at the Opeibea intersection.
" I proceeded to the scene of the accident and saw a damaged VW Golf car, the President's car and a black Mercedes Benz saloon", he said and added that the President's car was taken to the Castle.
The witness noted that he went to the hospital where he learnt the accident victims had been taken to for treatment and while there, he saw the driver of the VW Golf who was introduced as Rev Joe King Osei Kuffuor, the President's driver and the accused person.
According to Lance Corporal Asare on speaking to the accused person, he realised that he smelled on alcohol and, therefore, he was instructed to test the accused person.
He said at the time the alcocensor was not around and so it was sent for but before he could test he accused person, he (Osei) in the presence of two medical doctors admitted that he had taken in some alcohol.
The witness said that he was unaware that the accused person had taken a meal during which time he took the alcohol.
Another witness, George Oduro, an escort driver of the Presidential convoy told the court that his car was behind that of the President's and that the distance between cars in the convoy was about 20 metres while the speed was between 80/90 KMP.
On reaching the Opeibea House intersection area, he said, he spotted a car moving at top speed from the Aviance section of the road, which made him to close in on the President's car.
Mr Oduro said the median on the road prevented him from taking full cover because he would have hit the car of the President.
He said the oncoming car hit the President's car at its rear tyre after which he stopped in front of the car of the accused person until he was asked to move.
Moments later, he said President J.A. Kufuor was put in his car and taken to the Castle, Osu.
During cross-examination, the witness noted that each time the Presidents convoy moved all the cars except that of the President, had sirens on.
He said he could not tell whether an earlier witness had told the court that the siren in the President's car was on at the time of the accident but what he saw was his evidence.
According to him, it was possible that the President's convoy could be involved in an accident if the policeman who was detailed to monitor traffic did not do his work well and it was to forestall any such thing that a policeman is always at post to ensure sanity.
He said the policeman who was on duty on the day of the accident gave sufficient notice to road users that the President's convoy was about to pass.
A vehicle examiner from the Driver and Vehicle licensing Authority (DVLA), Mr Joseph Addison gave a terse evidence and tendered a report on an examination he conducted on the cars which were involved in the accident.
He was, however, not allowed to read the report when counsel for the accused person raised an objection about its relevance to the charges against his client.
The witness, Lance Corporal Eric Asare of the Airport MTTU further denied that the alcosensor, which he used to test the alcohol level of the accused person was defective since he regularly serviced it.
Testifying under cross-examination by Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, counsel for the accused person, the witness indicated that the legal alcohol limit was 0.08 per cent but did not think that anybody with 0.41 per cent would be totally in a coma and not be able to do anything.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007 and remanded.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High Court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
Led in his evidence by the acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ms Gertrude Aikins, Lance Corporal Asare told the court that he was not present when the accident occurred but was in the charge office as a standby investigator when his superior officer called to inform him that the President's car had been involved in a serious accident at the Opeibea intersection.
" I proceeded to the scene of the accident and saw a damaged VW Golf car, the President's car and a black Mercedes Benz saloon", he said and added that the President's car was taken to the Castle.
The witness noted that he went to the hospital where he learnt the accident victims had been taken to for treatment and while there, he saw the driver of the VW Golf who was introduced as Rev Joe King Osei Kuffuor, the President's driver and the accused person.
According to Lance Corporal Asare on speaking to the accused person, he realised that he smelled on alcohol and, therefore, he was instructed to test the accused person.
He said at the time the alcocensor was not around and so it was sent for but before he could test he accused person, he (Osei) in the presence of two medical doctors admitted that he had taken in some alcohol.
The witness said that he was unaware that the accused person had taken a meal during which time he took the alcohol.
Another witness, George Oduro, an escort driver of the Presidential convoy told the court that his car was behind that of the President's and that the distance between cars in the convoy was about 20 metres while the speed was between 80/90 KMP.
On reaching the Opeibea House intersection area, he said, he spotted a car moving at top speed from the Aviance section of the road, which made him to close in on the President's car.
Mr Oduro said the median on the road prevented him from taking full cover because he would have hit the car of the President.
He said the oncoming car hit the President's car at its rear tyre after which he stopped in front of the car of the accused person until he was asked to move.
Moments later, he said President J.A. Kufuor was put in his car and taken to the Castle, Osu.
During cross-examination, the witness noted that each time the Presidents convoy moved all the cars except that of the President, had sirens on.
He said he could not tell whether an earlier witness had told the court that the siren in the President's car was on at the time of the accident but what he saw was his evidence.
According to him, it was possible that the President's convoy could be involved in an accident if the policeman who was detailed to monitor traffic did not do his work well and it was to forestall any such thing that a policeman is always at post to ensure sanity.
He said the policeman who was on duty on the day of the accident gave sufficient notice to road users that the President's convoy was about to pass.
A vehicle examiner from the Driver and Vehicle licensing Authority (DVLA), Mr Joseph Addison gave a terse evidence and tendered a report on an examination he conducted on the cars which were involved in the accident.
He was, however, not allowed to read the report when counsel for the accused person raised an objection about its relevance to the charges against his client.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
CROSS-FIRE IN COURT OVER PRESIDENT'S ACCIDENT CASE
LAWYERS in the accident case involving President Kufuor today engaged in heated arguments laced with vituperations that sent tempers flaring in the Accra Fast Track High Court.
The trial judge, Mr Justice E.K. Ayebi, had to intervene to calm the cross-fire but that was not without some difficulty as he thought that the acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ms Gertrude Aikins and Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, counsel for the defence, were enemies.
“Are you enemies. I don’t like what you people are doing”, the judge reminded the counsel and asked them to be mindful of the ethics of the Bar.
The tense atmosphere was, somehow, defused by the poor translation of the proceedings in Twi by a court interpreter whose ‘butchering’ of both the Twi and English langauages sent the packed court laughing uncontrollably.
Mr Justice Ayebi had on occasions reminded the interpreter to do the right translation of what had been said.
The stage was set when Mr Akuffo after announcing himself accused the DPP of lying to the court at the last sitting that she was unwell and, therefore, needed a two-week adjournment.
According to counsel, he would not have spoken but for the fact that his client was still in custody and that Ms Aikins after taking the adjournment was seen in the Court of Appeal three days later standing on her feet for more than two and a half hours in the case involving the jailed Member of Parliament (MP) for Keta, Dan Abodakpi.
Quickly, the judge drew counsel’s attention that he could not make that kind of argument just because Ms Aikins was in court and he should be circumspect about how he made such statements.
Ms Aikins said she could not leave the matter to rest since it hinged on her integrity and sought leave from the court to order the Registrar of the Court of Appeal to furnish it with what transpired in the former MP’s case.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007 and remanded.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
When the dust settled, Rev King Joe Osei Kuffuor, the man whose car was affected by the accident continued his testimony under cross-examination from Mr Akuffo
The witness denied that he had been coached to testify in order to put the accused person in trouble since his evidence was not the accurate recollection of the event.
Another witness, ASP Emmanuel Raymond Asante Of the VIP Protection Unit also testified and said that on the day of the accident he was in the President’s house and that all the vehicles in the Presidential convoy, including that of the President, had their sirens on.
He said once the sirens were working they were uninterrupted until the convoy reached the Castle at Osu.
According to ASP Asante although he was in the President’s house when the convoy took off he was not in a position to say anything about what happened since he was not present at the scene of the accident.
The cross-fire was reignited when Mr Akuffo wanted to ask the witness a question relating to the movement of the President’s convoy after the accident but Ms Aikins objected and her objection was sustained.
Mr Emmanuel Osafo Addo, the President’s driver, in his evidence said he knew the accused person because for about four years he had been visiting the President’s house.
He said on the day of the accident, he was on his normal driving duty but on reaching the Opeibea intersection he saw the black Benz but he remained focused.
However, he said that in his effort to swerve the Benz car, the President’s car was hit by the Benz at the rear making it to somersault.
Mr Addo said he did not see the accused person immediately before and after the accident because before the accident he saw a black Benz car while the driver was brought to the hospital on a stretcher.
He described as false any information that he and Rev Kuffuor were taken in an ambulance to the hospital because he was taken to the hospital in a police patrol vehicle.
The trial judge, Mr Justice E.K. Ayebi, had to intervene to calm the cross-fire but that was not without some difficulty as he thought that the acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ms Gertrude Aikins and Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, counsel for the defence, were enemies.
“Are you enemies. I don’t like what you people are doing”, the judge reminded the counsel and asked them to be mindful of the ethics of the Bar.
The tense atmosphere was, somehow, defused by the poor translation of the proceedings in Twi by a court interpreter whose ‘butchering’ of both the Twi and English langauages sent the packed court laughing uncontrollably.
Mr Justice Ayebi had on occasions reminded the interpreter to do the right translation of what had been said.
The stage was set when Mr Akuffo after announcing himself accused the DPP of lying to the court at the last sitting that she was unwell and, therefore, needed a two-week adjournment.
According to counsel, he would not have spoken but for the fact that his client was still in custody and that Ms Aikins after taking the adjournment was seen in the Court of Appeal three days later standing on her feet for more than two and a half hours in the case involving the jailed Member of Parliament (MP) for Keta, Dan Abodakpi.
Quickly, the judge drew counsel’s attention that he could not make that kind of argument just because Ms Aikins was in court and he should be circumspect about how he made such statements.
Ms Aikins said she could not leave the matter to rest since it hinged on her integrity and sought leave from the court to order the Registrar of the Court of Appeal to furnish it with what transpired in the former MP’s case.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007 and remanded.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
When the dust settled, Rev King Joe Osei Kuffuor, the man whose car was affected by the accident continued his testimony under cross-examination from Mr Akuffo
The witness denied that he had been coached to testify in order to put the accused person in trouble since his evidence was not the accurate recollection of the event.
Another witness, ASP Emmanuel Raymond Asante Of the VIP Protection Unit also testified and said that on the day of the accident he was in the President’s house and that all the vehicles in the Presidential convoy, including that of the President, had their sirens on.
He said once the sirens were working they were uninterrupted until the convoy reached the Castle at Osu.
According to ASP Asante although he was in the President’s house when the convoy took off he was not in a position to say anything about what happened since he was not present at the scene of the accident.
The cross-fire was reignited when Mr Akuffo wanted to ask the witness a question relating to the movement of the President’s convoy after the accident but Ms Aikins objected and her objection was sustained.
Mr Emmanuel Osafo Addo, the President’s driver, in his evidence said he knew the accused person because for about four years he had been visiting the President’s house.
He said on the day of the accident, he was on his normal driving duty but on reaching the Opeibea intersection he saw the black Benz but he remained focused.
However, he said that in his effort to swerve the Benz car, the President’s car was hit by the Benz at the rear making it to somersault.
Mr Addo said he did not see the accused person immediately before and after the accident because before the accident he saw a black Benz car while the driver was brought to the hospital on a stretcher.
He described as false any information that he and Rev Kuffuor were taken in an ambulance to the hospital because he was taken to the hospital in a police patrol vehicle.
HEALTH CARE FINANCING IN GHANA, 50 YEARS ON
There is no doubt that the greatest asset of every country is its citizens because their general well-being determines the overall progress and development of a national economy. An enhanced quality of life means higher productivity since very little of the country’s budget would be spent on health facilities and the treatment of diseases in general. Any country which has unhealthy population is bound to suffer in many ways towards programmes aimed at development.
Health and poverty, according to the Global Forum for Health Research (1999), are intricately linked and that poverty is often associated with ill health. Therefore various governments embark on programmes to provide good health care services to the people.
In developing countries such as Ghana, the extension and improvement of primary health care, for example, disproportionately benefited low income groups by addressing their health needs in a cost-effective way.
Despite persistent efforts, both present and past by successive governments, basic health indicators show that the health status of Ghanaians remains relatively poor with low life expectancy, infectious diseases, high maternal and infant mortality cases, among other new emerging diseases like buruli ulcer, with the poor being severely hit. This is very serious especially when about 40 per cent of the people are considered poor and 27 per cent are extremely poor.
Before the advent of colonialism, the natives used medicine prepared from herbal concoctions which were prepared by herbalists and other people who were well vexed in the spirit world. However with colonisation the British introduced orthodox medical medicine and hospitals as a very improved curative method.
Therefore, health care delivery is now pluralistic: there are private medical practitioners, mission hospitals/clinics, herbalists, and fetish priests, among many others. The private practitioners are in business to make money and are concentrated in urban areas. The missions also initially exempted the poor from their fees.
This is to say that Ghana has had a chequered history of health care financing options and as the country marks her 50th anniversary it is necessary to take a look at its health financing options. There had been certain times that health services were provided free of charge and other times that user fees were charged. Since the 1980s user fees for government services have become an accepted financing option for the health and social sectors in Ghana and many other developing countries.
Thus Ghana which had a tradition of providing health services free of charge introduced fees.
In July 1985, the government of Ghana enacted the Hospital Fees Regulation as a cost-sharing measure for the use of Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities.
Proponents of user fees stress that equity and efficiency gains can be achieved through the implementation of a cost-recovery policy package. Within this package user fees are complemented by decentralisation and combined with two targeting mechanisms favouring low income groups: exemptions, and the use of fee revenue to improve the services offered to them.
Success in protecting the poor appears to be limited and there are considerable informational, administrative, resource and socio-political constraints undermining the development of effective targeting mechanisms.
Attempts to recover some government health care expenses through user charges have produced less revenue than hoped and national health insurance was seem as an attractive alternative, but needs to include features which check cost escalation. Community involvement and traditional medicine can also help to reduce costs.
Despite improvements in public health indicators, the population of Ghana still suffers because of a poor health status, especially in rural areas. The largest provider of health services is the Ministry of Health (MOH). Although the MOH budget grew 12 per cent from 1986 to 1990, this amounted to only a 2.3 per cent real per capita increase.
Prices are specified according to service level, treatment location, age, and service. This scheme resulted in an average of less than 10 per cent cost recovery for the MOH and a drop in attendance at health facilities, especially in rural areas.
The number of mutual health organisations (MHOs) in Ghana grew from 47 in 2001 to 168 in 2003. Yet there is limited evidence on factors that predict enrolment in such schemes, and whether enrolment increases health care utilisation and ultimately health outcomes. In recognition of the potential of MHOs to eliminate user fees and increase access to health care, Ghana enacted the National Health Insurance Act in 2003, mandating the establishment of district-wide MHOs.
A study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ghana involving six districts in Ghana: Nkoranza, Kwahu South, Ahanta West, Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Offinso, and Savelugu/Nanton. Results indicated that household head characteristics (older age, female gender, higher education, and employment) predicted insurance enrolment at the household level, whereas these factors plus household wealth increased the likelihood of enrolment of an individual. Referring to outpatient care seeking, insured respondents were more likely than uninsured to seek treatment and to do so promptly. Insurance enrolment was the most important predictor of being able to afford hospital care. Enrolment also protected respondents from being detained in hospital due to inability to pay the bill. Marginal insurance effects were found in relation to prenatal care, but insured women in Nkoranza were significantly more likely to deliver by caesarean. The combined effect of insurance enrolment and complicated delivery provided protection from high out-of-pocket payments. Comparing premiums for the MHOs in the study districts with those of the NHIS suggests that the government-established NHIS premium of 72,000 cedis per adult was within reach of most Ghanaian families, and offered a better value in that it covers primary health care in addition to inpatient care. Adverse selection is more likely to pose a problem in the near term, given the slow uptake of enrolment. Findings largely demonstrate that enrolment in insurance does offer household income protection for more serious health issues. Uninsured respondents paid 10-20 times more for inpatient care than did insured respondents. My old lady who saw the significance of the scheme remarked when I visited the village that because of n her enrolment status doctors now prescribed expensive drugs for her. Findings for maternity care payments were similar – insured women paid 3-5 times less for delivery care than did uninsured women. Future surveys will be useful to both monitor progress in the study districts and to evaluate the impact of implementing national health insurance in Ghana.
It is a fact that because the Hospital Fees Regulation legislation did not provide the necessary funds for Ghana's health care system to improve and expand, other mechanisms such as the National Health Insurance scheme (NHIS) which depend upon shared costs between insurer and insured has been introduced .
Self employed or unemployed contributors to the scheme paid annual premiums while their working counterparts who contributed to the Social Security National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) were bailed when their 2.5 per cent of their SSNIT contributions were deducted to support the scheme. But this could have settled the minds of many but has its problems such that some contributors faced problems in getting registered. I happen to be victim of this unfortunate phenomenon. There were other reported cases of frustration because insurance card holders were said to be neglected for those who paid real cash at the health delivery points. This has been so probably because of the inability of the National Health Insurance Council (NHIC) to reimburse the various delivery points. It was however, refreshing when the Council late last year was reported by the Ghana New Agency (GNA) to have paid 324 billion cedis for the settlement of all debts it owed to hospitals, clinics and pharmacy shops that provide services to scheme members.
The Executive Secretary of the NHIS, Mr Ras Boateng was said to have disclosed this in a speech read on his behalf at the second annual general meeting of the New Juaben Municipal Mutual Health Insurance Scheme in Koforidua.
He was reported as saying that Ghana had achieved the fastest rate of implementation of health insurance in the world, and that within a short time of three years of actual implementation, close to 50 per cent of the country's population was accessing free health care. Is this free health care anyway?
Various concepts such as the conflict theory with its base on economics, perceptions as a concept of human behaviour and social group influences, have been found to influence health care utilisation and especially in our part of the world where health care delivery is pluralistic requires tactfulness to ensure maximum utilisation. There should be continued public sensitisation to rake in more people to embrace the scheme . This is in spite of the flagrant refusal by some people not to patronise it on the fickle excuse that it is of no benefit to them. Those who think this way say that when they go to health centres they are not given the best of drugs. This kind of thinking has a somewhat sociological base in that patients who receive drugs of certain kinds such as tablets, injections and the colour of the drug play on the minds of the people so that when they receive the expected drug they think a certain way. Since health care users fees have become in vogue in contemporay health care administration efforts must be done to streamline them to improve on the health status of the people.
Health and poverty, according to the Global Forum for Health Research (1999), are intricately linked and that poverty is often associated with ill health. Therefore various governments embark on programmes to provide good health care services to the people.
In developing countries such as Ghana, the extension and improvement of primary health care, for example, disproportionately benefited low income groups by addressing their health needs in a cost-effective way.
Despite persistent efforts, both present and past by successive governments, basic health indicators show that the health status of Ghanaians remains relatively poor with low life expectancy, infectious diseases, high maternal and infant mortality cases, among other new emerging diseases like buruli ulcer, with the poor being severely hit. This is very serious especially when about 40 per cent of the people are considered poor and 27 per cent are extremely poor.
Before the advent of colonialism, the natives used medicine prepared from herbal concoctions which were prepared by herbalists and other people who were well vexed in the spirit world. However with colonisation the British introduced orthodox medical medicine and hospitals as a very improved curative method.
Therefore, health care delivery is now pluralistic: there are private medical practitioners, mission hospitals/clinics, herbalists, and fetish priests, among many others. The private practitioners are in business to make money and are concentrated in urban areas. The missions also initially exempted the poor from their fees.
This is to say that Ghana has had a chequered history of health care financing options and as the country marks her 50th anniversary it is necessary to take a look at its health financing options. There had been certain times that health services were provided free of charge and other times that user fees were charged. Since the 1980s user fees for government services have become an accepted financing option for the health and social sectors in Ghana and many other developing countries.
Thus Ghana which had a tradition of providing health services free of charge introduced fees.
In July 1985, the government of Ghana enacted the Hospital Fees Regulation as a cost-sharing measure for the use of Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities.
Proponents of user fees stress that equity and efficiency gains can be achieved through the implementation of a cost-recovery policy package. Within this package user fees are complemented by decentralisation and combined with two targeting mechanisms favouring low income groups: exemptions, and the use of fee revenue to improve the services offered to them.
Success in protecting the poor appears to be limited and there are considerable informational, administrative, resource and socio-political constraints undermining the development of effective targeting mechanisms.
Attempts to recover some government health care expenses through user charges have produced less revenue than hoped and national health insurance was seem as an attractive alternative, but needs to include features which check cost escalation. Community involvement and traditional medicine can also help to reduce costs.
Despite improvements in public health indicators, the population of Ghana still suffers because of a poor health status, especially in rural areas. The largest provider of health services is the Ministry of Health (MOH). Although the MOH budget grew 12 per cent from 1986 to 1990, this amounted to only a 2.3 per cent real per capita increase.
Prices are specified according to service level, treatment location, age, and service. This scheme resulted in an average of less than 10 per cent cost recovery for the MOH and a drop in attendance at health facilities, especially in rural areas.
The number of mutual health organisations (MHOs) in Ghana grew from 47 in 2001 to 168 in 2003. Yet there is limited evidence on factors that predict enrolment in such schemes, and whether enrolment increases health care utilisation and ultimately health outcomes. In recognition of the potential of MHOs to eliminate user fees and increase access to health care, Ghana enacted the National Health Insurance Act in 2003, mandating the establishment of district-wide MHOs.
A study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ghana involving six districts in Ghana: Nkoranza, Kwahu South, Ahanta West, Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Offinso, and Savelugu/Nanton. Results indicated that household head characteristics (older age, female gender, higher education, and employment) predicted insurance enrolment at the household level, whereas these factors plus household wealth increased the likelihood of enrolment of an individual. Referring to outpatient care seeking, insured respondents were more likely than uninsured to seek treatment and to do so promptly. Insurance enrolment was the most important predictor of being able to afford hospital care. Enrolment also protected respondents from being detained in hospital due to inability to pay the bill. Marginal insurance effects were found in relation to prenatal care, but insured women in Nkoranza were significantly more likely to deliver by caesarean. The combined effect of insurance enrolment and complicated delivery provided protection from high out-of-pocket payments. Comparing premiums for the MHOs in the study districts with those of the NHIS suggests that the government-established NHIS premium of 72,000 cedis per adult was within reach of most Ghanaian families, and offered a better value in that it covers primary health care in addition to inpatient care. Adverse selection is more likely to pose a problem in the near term, given the slow uptake of enrolment. Findings largely demonstrate that enrolment in insurance does offer household income protection for more serious health issues. Uninsured respondents paid 10-20 times more for inpatient care than did insured respondents. My old lady who saw the significance of the scheme remarked when I visited the village that because of n her enrolment status doctors now prescribed expensive drugs for her. Findings for maternity care payments were similar – insured women paid 3-5 times less for delivery care than did uninsured women. Future surveys will be useful to both monitor progress in the study districts and to evaluate the impact of implementing national health insurance in Ghana.
It is a fact that because the Hospital Fees Regulation legislation did not provide the necessary funds for Ghana's health care system to improve and expand, other mechanisms such as the National Health Insurance scheme (NHIS) which depend upon shared costs between insurer and insured has been introduced .
Self employed or unemployed contributors to the scheme paid annual premiums while their working counterparts who contributed to the Social Security National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) were bailed when their 2.5 per cent of their SSNIT contributions were deducted to support the scheme. But this could have settled the minds of many but has its problems such that some contributors faced problems in getting registered. I happen to be victim of this unfortunate phenomenon. There were other reported cases of frustration because insurance card holders were said to be neglected for those who paid real cash at the health delivery points. This has been so probably because of the inability of the National Health Insurance Council (NHIC) to reimburse the various delivery points. It was however, refreshing when the Council late last year was reported by the Ghana New Agency (GNA) to have paid 324 billion cedis for the settlement of all debts it owed to hospitals, clinics and pharmacy shops that provide services to scheme members.
The Executive Secretary of the NHIS, Mr Ras Boateng was said to have disclosed this in a speech read on his behalf at the second annual general meeting of the New Juaben Municipal Mutual Health Insurance Scheme in Koforidua.
He was reported as saying that Ghana had achieved the fastest rate of implementation of health insurance in the world, and that within a short time of three years of actual implementation, close to 50 per cent of the country's population was accessing free health care. Is this free health care anyway?
Various concepts such as the conflict theory with its base on economics, perceptions as a concept of human behaviour and social group influences, have been found to influence health care utilisation and especially in our part of the world where health care delivery is pluralistic requires tactfulness to ensure maximum utilisation. There should be continued public sensitisation to rake in more people to embrace the scheme . This is in spite of the flagrant refusal by some people not to patronise it on the fickle excuse that it is of no benefit to them. Those who think this way say that when they go to health centres they are not given the best of drugs. This kind of thinking has a somewhat sociological base in that patients who receive drugs of certain kinds such as tablets, injections and the colour of the drug play on the minds of the people so that when they receive the expected drug they think a certain way. Since health care users fees have become in vogue in contemporay health care administration efforts must be done to streamline them to improve on the health status of the people.
I REFUSED TO CHANGE MY STATEMENT- SAILOR
A SAILOR who is being tried alongside four others in connection with MV Benjamin, the vessel alleged to have carted 77 parcels of cocaine in the country, on Wednesday said that a police investigator asked him to change his statement and write a new one to incriminate the two foreigners involved but he refused.
The sailor, Isaac Arhin, told the Accra Fast Track High Court that he refused and informed Inspector Charles Adabah, the investigator, that he had already given his statement to the police but asked James Inkoom, an accomplice who later became a prosecution witness whether he (Inkoom) had changed his statement to the police, to which Inkoom replied no.
Isaac was concluding his evidence in-chief in the case in which he, his brother, Philip Bruce Arhin, Joseph Kojo Dawson, the owner of the vessel, and Cui Xian Li and Luo Yin Xing, both Chinese, have been accused of playing various roles in the importation of the cocaine.
The accused persons have been charged with various counts of using property for narcotic offences, engaging in prohibited business relating to narcotics and possession of narcotic drugs without lawful authority.
Each of them has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and has been remanded in prison custody.
Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr Osei Wusu, Isaac told the court that they were on remand at the James Fort prison and four days after coming to court, they were taken to the Police CID Headquarters where the investigator called him to come and change his statement to the police to incriminate the whitemen.
He said after that Inkoom was dropped as an accomplice and never taken to court again.
When Mrs Stella Badu, a state attorney crossed-examined Isaac, he said that he had been a sailor for 20 years but had worked with MV Benjamin for only three years from 2002 to 2005.
According to him, he did not know Yin Xing, one of the Chinese but knew all the other accused persons and that Yin Xing came to the vessel a day before it took off to the high seas to ask for food from Xian Li who was his friend.
He described as false the assertion that Inkoom was not working on the vessel at the time it was arrested and according to him, after Inkoom had gone for the funeral of his late wife he came back two months later.
Isaac said that he filled the vessel’s movement card but denied that he knew the destination of the vessel because he was made to understand that it was going for a trial on the high seas.
He further denied that Commander Yakubu of the Ghana Navy spoke to their vessel before it w as arrested because the instrument on which the Commander allegedly spoke to them did not exist on the vessel, therefore, it was impossible to have communicated with them
The sailor, Isaac Arhin, told the Accra Fast Track High Court that he refused and informed Inspector Charles Adabah, the investigator, that he had already given his statement to the police but asked James Inkoom, an accomplice who later became a prosecution witness whether he (Inkoom) had changed his statement to the police, to which Inkoom replied no.
Isaac was concluding his evidence in-chief in the case in which he, his brother, Philip Bruce Arhin, Joseph Kojo Dawson, the owner of the vessel, and Cui Xian Li and Luo Yin Xing, both Chinese, have been accused of playing various roles in the importation of the cocaine.
The accused persons have been charged with various counts of using property for narcotic offences, engaging in prohibited business relating to narcotics and possession of narcotic drugs without lawful authority.
Each of them has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and has been remanded in prison custody.
Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr Osei Wusu, Isaac told the court that they were on remand at the James Fort prison and four days after coming to court, they were taken to the Police CID Headquarters where the investigator called him to come and change his statement to the police to incriminate the whitemen.
He said after that Inkoom was dropped as an accomplice and never taken to court again.
When Mrs Stella Badu, a state attorney crossed-examined Isaac, he said that he had been a sailor for 20 years but had worked with MV Benjamin for only three years from 2002 to 2005.
According to him, he did not know Yin Xing, one of the Chinese but knew all the other accused persons and that Yin Xing came to the vessel a day before it took off to the high seas to ask for food from Xian Li who was his friend.
He described as false the assertion that Inkoom was not working on the vessel at the time it was arrested and according to him, after Inkoom had gone for the funeral of his late wife he came back two months later.
Isaac said that he filled the vessel’s movement card but denied that he knew the destination of the vessel because he was made to understand that it was going for a trial on the high seas.
He further denied that Commander Yakubu of the Ghana Navy spoke to their vessel before it w as arrested because the instrument on which the Commander allegedly spoke to them did not exist on the vessel, therefore, it was impossible to have communicated with them
FORMER AMA ACCOUNTANT IN COURT FOR MURDERING GIRLFRIEND
A former accountant at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Kingsley Awanga Cromwell, who allegedly murdered his girlfriend at North Kaneshie in Accra and attempted to end his life has been arraigned at the Accra Fast Track High Court on a charge of murder.
Cromwell was said to have suspected his girlfriend, Beatrice Mensah, then a secretary with the AMA, of having a relationship with a military officer and strangled her to death on November 6, 2004.
Cromwell pleaded not guilty to the charge. He is on bail granted by an Accra High Court.
Three prosecution witnesses testified last Tuesday and the case was adjourned to February 15, 2008.
The facts as narrated to the court by Ms Cynthia Lamptey, a state attorney, are that Cromwell and Beatrice were in a relationship for about four years until the incident.
She said that Cromwell, who had two wives, suspected Beatrice of having an affair with a military officer and on that fateful day informed one of his wives that he was going to kill Beatrice and then kill himself.
Ms Lamptey told the court that when Cromwell went to Beatrice’s house, he asked her to accompany him to the bedroom where he strangled her.
According to her, the landlady, Madam Susana Yemokai Owoo, became suspicious after Beatrice’s niece come to ask her (landlady) about Beatrice. The landlady used a spare key to open the door only to find Beatrice dead.
The prosecutor said the landlady then found Cromwell hiding behind a refrigerator in the kitchen and stabbed himself.
Counsel for Cromwell denied that his client was responsible for the strangulation, which a post-mortem report indicated was the cause of the death of Beatrice.
In her evidence, the landlady said he knew both Cromwell and Beatrice and that on November 6, 2004, she was at home at dawn when Beatrice spoke with her through the window and asked of her (landlady’s) health.
Madam Owoo said that Beatrice informed her that Cromwell was coming to the house so she opened the gate for him and the two went into their room.
Not quite long, she said, Beatrice’s niece came to ask her about the whereabouts of the deceased, since a knock on his door did not yield any response.
“I told the girl that Beatrice was in her room with Cromwell but she came back to tell me that several knocks did not elicit any response but I became worried because Cromwell just came around,” she said.
According to Madam Owoo, she followed up and knocked the door and yet there was no response and , therefore, went for a spare key to open the door and because Cromwell was tall she saw his head and asked him where Beatrice had been.
She said Cromwell told her that Beatrice was asleep but she wondered that could be true when they both entered not too long ago.
The witness said that while talking the deceased’s niece said they should call Beatrice and when they did she did not respond and the girl spotted traces of blood making her (landlady) to exclaim “Oh my Lord”.
She said that having found the traces of blood herself, she shouted and then her driver came into the room and hit the door to the bedroom with his leg and when it was opened they saw Beatrice lying dead on the bed covered with a pillow.
“We noticed that Beatrice’s tongue had stuck out,” she said, and added that many people were attracted to the room and started wailing and she sent for the police.
She said that when the police arrived and opened the kitchen they found Cromwell hiding behind the fridge in a pool of blood.
Madam Owoo said later on a lady carrying a baby and claimed to be the wife of Cromwell came to the house to say that the accused person had threatened to kill the deceased and also kill himself but when she asked the lady why she delayed in coming to report the lady replied that she did not know the house.
A brother of the deceased, Mr Ebenezer Hughes, also testified and said that on that day he was at work and he received a call from his niece that Beatrice was dead.
He said that upon receiving the information, he went to Beatrice’s house and met a crowd including the police but he was asked to wait for sometime and after that the police called him to assist to take the body to the morgue.
Another witness, Madam Beatrice Miller, Beatrice’s aunt, said on the day of the incident she was at home at about 5.30 a.m. when a lady carrying a baby came to inform her that Cromwell had said he was going to kill Beatrice and then kill himself.
Therefore, she said, she sent her granddaughter, Genevive Addo, to the house of Beatrice to inform her about the story but when Genevive went she called to say that a lot of people were wailing in the house and that Beatrice might have been dead.
Cromwell was said to have suspected his girlfriend, Beatrice Mensah, then a secretary with the AMA, of having a relationship with a military officer and strangled her to death on November 6, 2004.
Cromwell pleaded not guilty to the charge. He is on bail granted by an Accra High Court.
Three prosecution witnesses testified last Tuesday and the case was adjourned to February 15, 2008.
The facts as narrated to the court by Ms Cynthia Lamptey, a state attorney, are that Cromwell and Beatrice were in a relationship for about four years until the incident.
She said that Cromwell, who had two wives, suspected Beatrice of having an affair with a military officer and on that fateful day informed one of his wives that he was going to kill Beatrice and then kill himself.
Ms Lamptey told the court that when Cromwell went to Beatrice’s house, he asked her to accompany him to the bedroom where he strangled her.
According to her, the landlady, Madam Susana Yemokai Owoo, became suspicious after Beatrice’s niece come to ask her (landlady) about Beatrice. The landlady used a spare key to open the door only to find Beatrice dead.
The prosecutor said the landlady then found Cromwell hiding behind a refrigerator in the kitchen and stabbed himself.
Counsel for Cromwell denied that his client was responsible for the strangulation, which a post-mortem report indicated was the cause of the death of Beatrice.
In her evidence, the landlady said he knew both Cromwell and Beatrice and that on November 6, 2004, she was at home at dawn when Beatrice spoke with her through the window and asked of her (landlady’s) health.
Madam Owoo said that Beatrice informed her that Cromwell was coming to the house so she opened the gate for him and the two went into their room.
Not quite long, she said, Beatrice’s niece came to ask her about the whereabouts of the deceased, since a knock on his door did not yield any response.
“I told the girl that Beatrice was in her room with Cromwell but she came back to tell me that several knocks did not elicit any response but I became worried because Cromwell just came around,” she said.
According to Madam Owoo, she followed up and knocked the door and yet there was no response and , therefore, went for a spare key to open the door and because Cromwell was tall she saw his head and asked him where Beatrice had been.
She said Cromwell told her that Beatrice was asleep but she wondered that could be true when they both entered not too long ago.
The witness said that while talking the deceased’s niece said they should call Beatrice and when they did she did not respond and the girl spotted traces of blood making her (landlady) to exclaim “Oh my Lord”.
She said that having found the traces of blood herself, she shouted and then her driver came into the room and hit the door to the bedroom with his leg and when it was opened they saw Beatrice lying dead on the bed covered with a pillow.
“We noticed that Beatrice’s tongue had stuck out,” she said, and added that many people were attracted to the room and started wailing and she sent for the police.
She said that when the police arrived and opened the kitchen they found Cromwell hiding behind the fridge in a pool of blood.
Madam Owoo said later on a lady carrying a baby and claimed to be the wife of Cromwell came to the house to say that the accused person had threatened to kill the deceased and also kill himself but when she asked the lady why she delayed in coming to report the lady replied that she did not know the house.
A brother of the deceased, Mr Ebenezer Hughes, also testified and said that on that day he was at work and he received a call from his niece that Beatrice was dead.
He said that upon receiving the information, he went to Beatrice’s house and met a crowd including the police but he was asked to wait for sometime and after that the police called him to assist to take the body to the morgue.
Another witness, Madam Beatrice Miller, Beatrice’s aunt, said on the day of the incident she was at home at about 5.30 a.m. when a lady carrying a baby came to inform her that Cromwell had said he was going to kill Beatrice and then kill himself.
Therefore, she said, she sent her granddaughter, Genevive Addo, to the house of Beatrice to inform her about the story but when Genevive went she called to say that a lot of people were wailing in the house and that Beatrice might have been dead.
GIMPA COUNCIL CHAIRMAN CONTINUES EVIDENCE
THE Chairman of the Governing Council of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Dr Edward Henaku Boohene, told an Accra Fast Track High Court on Monday that the council appointed the GIMPA Rector, Dr Stephen Adei, for a second term until his retirement in December this year.
He said the council, at its meeting on July 14, 2005, accepted the recommendations and gave approval for the appointment after a committee appointed to search for a rector had submitted its report to it.
He was testifying under cross-examination by Mr Daniel Amarteifio, counsel for Dr Adei, in the case in which Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr is seeking an order from the court to restrain the GIMPA Rector from holding himself out as a professor of the institute.
Mr Faibille also wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and he should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as rector.
Dr Boohene said Dr Adei was appointed under the original terms of his first contract until the new terms of contract were reviewed by the Finance and Accounts Board.
Asked why he did not write to Dr Adei to confirm the council’s decision, Dr Boohene stated that he refused to write the letter because to him the appointment was invalid because he had not received the new terms of the contract.
The witness agreed with counsel that before Dr Adei was re-appointed, he had occupied and performed the functions of Rector without any protest from him (Dr Boohene) nor the council.
When counsel suggested to the witness that he refused to write the confirmation letter to Dr Adei because of a bad relationship between them, Dr Boohene replied that although the relationship was not the best, that was not the reason but that he had insisted that the right thing be done according to the laws of GIMPA.
He said it was true that some council members had expressed concern about the bad blood between them and because of that a committee was appointed to see President Kufuor about it.
“The Rector accused me of wanting his job so when we went to the President, this matter was discussed,” Dr Boohene said.
When he was asked whether he would have dismissed Dr Adei if he had the power to do so, he replied, “This is a difficult question, but any reasonable person who is the head of an institution has the moral right to do what is correct and that is what I would do,” adding that he had not had the time to assess Dr Adei’s performance as Rector of GIMPA.
Dr Boohene described as partly true the fact that he had refused to sign some minutes of GIMPA Council meetings because to his mind they were not correct.
Regarding Dr Adei’s professorial title, Dr Boohene said some members of the GIMPA Academic Board had come to him on the issue, and when counsel put it to him that those members could not be council members, the witness replied that some could be.
Dr Boohene said the council did not require Dr Adei to bring his professorial title for revaluation and added that he was unaware that Dr Adei had said his title was conferred on him by GIMPA.
Asked what he thought about the suit against them, Dr Boohene said he was puzzled by it and that he did not know Mr Faibille until the suit, although he had been reading the Ghanaian Observer, which he found interesting.
When counsel further asked him whether what the newspaper had been writing about Dr Adei was accurate, Dr Boohene replied in the negative, but when pressed further that he had been feeding the newspaper with that information, he said, “If I were not in court I would have said that this is absolutely nonsense.”
According to him, it was wrong for the Ghanaian Observer to say that Dr Adei had not been appointed, saying that any such information was misleading and he had not seen one.
“I am tired of the place,” he said about GIMPA, saying that even though GIMPA was not a big place, there were always problems.
Dr Boohene said as chairman of the council, his power overrode that of the council, but when asked to indicate the source of that information, he could not provide it.
Dr Adei will open his defence at the next sitting.
He said the council, at its meeting on July 14, 2005, accepted the recommendations and gave approval for the appointment after a committee appointed to search for a rector had submitted its report to it.
He was testifying under cross-examination by Mr Daniel Amarteifio, counsel for Dr Adei, in the case in which Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr is seeking an order from the court to restrain the GIMPA Rector from holding himself out as a professor of the institute.
Mr Faibille also wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and he should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as rector.
Dr Boohene said Dr Adei was appointed under the original terms of his first contract until the new terms of contract were reviewed by the Finance and Accounts Board.
Asked why he did not write to Dr Adei to confirm the council’s decision, Dr Boohene stated that he refused to write the letter because to him the appointment was invalid because he had not received the new terms of the contract.
The witness agreed with counsel that before Dr Adei was re-appointed, he had occupied and performed the functions of Rector without any protest from him (Dr Boohene) nor the council.
When counsel suggested to the witness that he refused to write the confirmation letter to Dr Adei because of a bad relationship between them, Dr Boohene replied that although the relationship was not the best, that was not the reason but that he had insisted that the right thing be done according to the laws of GIMPA.
He said it was true that some council members had expressed concern about the bad blood between them and because of that a committee was appointed to see President Kufuor about it.
“The Rector accused me of wanting his job so when we went to the President, this matter was discussed,” Dr Boohene said.
When he was asked whether he would have dismissed Dr Adei if he had the power to do so, he replied, “This is a difficult question, but any reasonable person who is the head of an institution has the moral right to do what is correct and that is what I would do,” adding that he had not had the time to assess Dr Adei’s performance as Rector of GIMPA.
Dr Boohene described as partly true the fact that he had refused to sign some minutes of GIMPA Council meetings because to his mind they were not correct.
Regarding Dr Adei’s professorial title, Dr Boohene said some members of the GIMPA Academic Board had come to him on the issue, and when counsel put it to him that those members could not be council members, the witness replied that some could be.
Dr Boohene said the council did not require Dr Adei to bring his professorial title for revaluation and added that he was unaware that Dr Adei had said his title was conferred on him by GIMPA.
Asked what he thought about the suit against them, Dr Boohene said he was puzzled by it and that he did not know Mr Faibille until the suit, although he had been reading the Ghanaian Observer, which he found interesting.
When counsel further asked him whether what the newspaper had been writing about Dr Adei was accurate, Dr Boohene replied in the negative, but when pressed further that he had been feeding the newspaper with that information, he said, “If I were not in court I would have said that this is absolutely nonsense.”
According to him, it was wrong for the Ghanaian Observer to say that Dr Adei had not been appointed, saying that any such information was misleading and he had not seen one.
“I am tired of the place,” he said about GIMPA, saying that even though GIMPA was not a big place, there were always problems.
Dr Boohene said as chairman of the council, his power overrode that of the council, but when asked to indicate the source of that information, he could not provide it.
Dr Adei will open his defence at the next sitting.
GIMPA COUNCIL CHAIRMAN TESTIFIES IN COURT
THE Chairman of the Governing Council of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Dr Edward Henaku Boohene, has said that he communicated the council’s decision to the GIMPA Rector, Dr Stephen Adei, that he should not use the title professor.
He also said that he did not write any letter to Dr Adei to re-appoint him as a rector after the expiration of his first term of office because by the terms of his previous appointment Dr Adei was to be offered additional two years’ extension.
Dr Boohene was testifying yesterday to close the case for Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr in a case in which he is seeking an order from the Fast Track High Court to restrain the GIMPA Rector from holding himself out as a professor of the institute.
Mr Faibille also wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as rector.
Dr Boohene said at an emergency meeting held by the Council on September 21, 2007, the council’s earlier decision that Dr Adei should not use the title professor came up because it was not recognised by GIMPA.
He said that after he communicated the decision to Dr Adei, the GIMPA Rector wrote back admitting the decision.
Regarding the re-appointment of Dr Adei, the witness said although he was directed at a meeting to make a re-appointment, that was to be done according to the law and Dr Adei was summoned to a meeting, which he complied.
The witness said he was enjoined by law to appoint a person as rector, according to the terms that the council would provide, while a decision was taken that someone should be appointed to take charge of academic and managerial matters as required by law.
Dr Boohene said during cross-examination that he was not personally the appointing authority of the Rector of GIMPA.
He also said that he did not write any letter to Dr Adei to re-appoint him as a rector after the expiration of his first term of office because by the terms of his previous appointment Dr Adei was to be offered additional two years’ extension.
Dr Boohene was testifying yesterday to close the case for Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr in a case in which he is seeking an order from the Fast Track High Court to restrain the GIMPA Rector from holding himself out as a professor of the institute.
Mr Faibille also wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as rector.
Dr Boohene said at an emergency meeting held by the Council on September 21, 2007, the council’s earlier decision that Dr Adei should not use the title professor came up because it was not recognised by GIMPA.
He said that after he communicated the decision to Dr Adei, the GIMPA Rector wrote back admitting the decision.
Regarding the re-appointment of Dr Adei, the witness said although he was directed at a meeting to make a re-appointment, that was to be done according to the law and Dr Adei was summoned to a meeting, which he complied.
The witness said he was enjoined by law to appoint a person as rector, according to the terms that the council would provide, while a decision was taken that someone should be appointed to take charge of academic and managerial matters as required by law.
Dr Boohene said during cross-examination that he was not personally the appointing authority of the Rector of GIMPA.
GIMPA COUNCIL MEMBER TESTIFIES IN COURT
THE Executive Chairman of the State Enterprises Commission (SEC), Mr Francis Kofi Ocran, has told an Accra Fast Track High Court that the Governing Council of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) asked the Rector, Dr Stephen Adei, not to use the title professor because it was not recognised by the institute.
“At GIMPA, you do not bring any title like professor and start using it. Any such title will have to be presented to the council to examine its authenticity in order to accept it or not,” he said, and pointed out that in the case of Dr Adei, the GIMPA Council examined it and took a decision that he should not use it.
Mr Ocran, who is also a member of the GIMPA Governing Council, said this when he testified in the case in which Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr is seeking an order from the Fast Track High Court to restrain the GIMPA Rector from holding himself out as a professor of the institute.
Mr Faibille wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as rector.
The witness said he was aware that Dr Adei had a professorial title and recalled that at one of the council’s meetings, the issue came up after Dr Adei had informed the meeting of his title, which was conferred on him by the African Leadership and Management Academy based in Zimbabwe.
Mr Ocran said Dr Adei was initially appointed as the Director-General of GIMPA for four years, adding that after the expiration of his tenure, his appointment was extended until Dr Adei reached his retiring age.
He said the issue of extending Dr Adei’s tenure was discussed by the council, during which the chairman and the secretary were given the responsibility to see to it that a letter was written, but that was not done.
During cross-examination by counsel for Dr Adei, the witness admitted that Dr Adei was not appointed to an academic position at GIMPA but as the chief executive officer.
According to him, since GIMPA was an academic institution, all positions were related to academic qualifications which were reviewed during appointments, saying that by convention and the minutes of the Governing Council, the staff of the institute had to apply for the re-evaluation of those titles, taking into account their qualifications.
However, in an answer to a question that a council member, Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, and others had their “professor” titles conferred on them and yet they were not vetted before they became GIMPA Council members, the witness replied that that situation was different from Dr Adei’s case.
Mr Ocran said it was the right of the shareholder to appoint those it considered qualified to be board members, saying that position was different from somebody in functional management and in the case of Dr Adei he indicated that apart from being the Rector, he also lectured at GIMPA.
He said in all the council meetings that he attended, Dr Adei was addressed as “professor”.
Meanwhile, the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Ransford Tetteh, has appeared before the court to testify in the case. He referred to a publication in the July 5, 2002 edition of the paper in which it was reported that Dr Adei had been appointed professor.
Mr Tetteh said he did not know the source of the story and was of the view that documents like what was used to publish the story could emanate from authentic sources.
He said the Daily Graphic was a responsible paper and would not publish any falsehood or misleading information.
“At GIMPA, you do not bring any title like professor and start using it. Any such title will have to be presented to the council to examine its authenticity in order to accept it or not,” he said, and pointed out that in the case of Dr Adei, the GIMPA Council examined it and took a decision that he should not use it.
Mr Ocran, who is also a member of the GIMPA Governing Council, said this when he testified in the case in which Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr is seeking an order from the Fast Track High Court to restrain the GIMPA Rector from holding himself out as a professor of the institute.
Mr Faibille wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as rector.
The witness said he was aware that Dr Adei had a professorial title and recalled that at one of the council’s meetings, the issue came up after Dr Adei had informed the meeting of his title, which was conferred on him by the African Leadership and Management Academy based in Zimbabwe.
Mr Ocran said Dr Adei was initially appointed as the Director-General of GIMPA for four years, adding that after the expiration of his tenure, his appointment was extended until Dr Adei reached his retiring age.
He said the issue of extending Dr Adei’s tenure was discussed by the council, during which the chairman and the secretary were given the responsibility to see to it that a letter was written, but that was not done.
During cross-examination by counsel for Dr Adei, the witness admitted that Dr Adei was not appointed to an academic position at GIMPA but as the chief executive officer.
According to him, since GIMPA was an academic institution, all positions were related to academic qualifications which were reviewed during appointments, saying that by convention and the minutes of the Governing Council, the staff of the institute had to apply for the re-evaluation of those titles, taking into account their qualifications.
However, in an answer to a question that a council member, Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, and others had their “professor” titles conferred on them and yet they were not vetted before they became GIMPA Council members, the witness replied that that situation was different from Dr Adei’s case.
Mr Ocran said it was the right of the shareholder to appoint those it considered qualified to be board members, saying that position was different from somebody in functional management and in the case of Dr Adei he indicated that apart from being the Rector, he also lectured at GIMPA.
He said in all the council meetings that he attended, Dr Adei was addressed as “professor”.
Meanwhile, the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Ransford Tetteh, has appeared before the court to testify in the case. He referred to a publication in the July 5, 2002 edition of the paper in which it was reported that Dr Adei had been appointed professor.
Mr Tetteh said he did not know the source of the story and was of the view that documents like what was used to publish the story could emanate from authentic sources.
He said the Daily Graphic was a responsible paper and would not publish any falsehood or misleading information.
SG-SSB BANK BOSS CAUTIONEND AND DISCHARGED
AN Accra High Court has cautioned and discharged the Managing Director of the SG-SSB Bank Ltd, Mr Alain Bellisard, for contempt of court after he had purged himself of the court order.
Counsel for Mr Bellisard, Mr Brookman Amissah, surrendered the title deeds on a house at Lever Avenue in Sekondi in the Western Region to Mr Kwame Fosu-Gyeabour, counsel for Gbewaa Civil Engineering Ltd, something which the court had directed to be done but had not been done, resulting in Bellisard’s conviction for contempt.
The court had, on March 26, 2006, ordered the bank to surrender title deeds on the house but it failed to do that, following which Gbewaa Ltd applied to the court for an order to commit the bank, particularly its managing director, for contempt of court, which the court upheld.
The managing director was admitted to a self-recognisance bail in the sum of GH¢20,000 and given 14 days within which to purge himself.
Meanwhile, Mr Amissah informed the court that his client was aggrieved by its proceedings and had, therefore, petitioned the Chief Justice to transfer the case from the court.
Counsel said that notwithstanding, he had also filed for proceedings in the matter to be stayed, since the court was not prepared to hear an application for stay of execution, which was a right to the applicant.
According to counsel, he had three appeal applications pending, arguing that in the light of that the court ought to hear his application for stay of execution.
Counsel for Gbewaa Ltd indicated to the court that the contemnor was abusing the process of the court and for that matter could not ask for any remedy from the court.
He said the position had been that until the contemnor purged himself, he could not be heard and whatever documents had been filed by his counsel should be disregarded and sentenced.
That line of argument brought Mr Amissah to his feet. He argued that it was not the true position of the law and that he only drew the court's attention to the processes that had been filed and was prepared to abide by the court's opinion.
According to him, the contemnor had to obey the court's order, sue for a declaration to that effect or make an application to set aside the order, saying that until those steps had been taken, one had to obey the order.
In view of the court's position not to countenance any further application in respect of the matter, Mr Amissah rendered an apology to the court and surrendered the document without any prejudice.
Gbewaa Ltd contracted a loan from the SG-SSB Bank in 2002 and used the documents as collateral until the loan was repaid.
After that the bank took the applicants to court on the grounds that the company had not finished with the payment but the court, after going into the matter, ruled that the documents should be surrendered because the company was not indebted to the bank.
In its contempt application, Gbewaa Ltd said although when the court gave its order that the respondent bank should surrender the documents its managing director was not in court, counsel was present.
It said subsequently the order was served on the bank but it refused to comply with it.
The bank’s counsel opposed the contempt application because, according to him, it was misconceived and incompetent because the present managing director, a French national, had assumed office in Ghana at a time when the court order had long been given.
Furthermore, the respondent argued that the convict had not been served with the court order, the subject of contempt, and that by the date of service of the said processes on him the bank had long since filed an appeal against the order, while an application for stay of execution pending appeal against the order had been filed as far back as June 14, 2006.
The bank denied having committed any contempt of court in the circumstances.
However, the court ruled that the relevant evidence available was that on April 19, 2006 the order was delivered to the managing director’s office, whereupon his secretary directed the bailiff to serve the order on the Recovery Unit of the bank.
It said the managing director’s secretary understood the order and, therefore, directed the bailiff to the immediate relevant unit of the bank and that in the normal scheme of things, the Secretary at the Recovery Unit, Madam Beatrice Quarshie, had received the document as an official document for and on behalf of her employers, the bank.
The court ruled that it was immaterial that the present managing director was not in office at the time of service of the court order on the bank and that the fact of the matter was that he took office with all the responsibilities and duties attached to the office.
“It will be preposterous to think otherwise. The managing director in office is attachable, once it has been proved that the court’s order has been disobeyed by the respondent bank,” said the court.
Counsel for Mr Bellisard, Mr Brookman Amissah, surrendered the title deeds on a house at Lever Avenue in Sekondi in the Western Region to Mr Kwame Fosu-Gyeabour, counsel for Gbewaa Civil Engineering Ltd, something which the court had directed to be done but had not been done, resulting in Bellisard’s conviction for contempt.
The court had, on March 26, 2006, ordered the bank to surrender title deeds on the house but it failed to do that, following which Gbewaa Ltd applied to the court for an order to commit the bank, particularly its managing director, for contempt of court, which the court upheld.
The managing director was admitted to a self-recognisance bail in the sum of GH¢20,000 and given 14 days within which to purge himself.
Meanwhile, Mr Amissah informed the court that his client was aggrieved by its proceedings and had, therefore, petitioned the Chief Justice to transfer the case from the court.
Counsel said that notwithstanding, he had also filed for proceedings in the matter to be stayed, since the court was not prepared to hear an application for stay of execution, which was a right to the applicant.
According to counsel, he had three appeal applications pending, arguing that in the light of that the court ought to hear his application for stay of execution.
Counsel for Gbewaa Ltd indicated to the court that the contemnor was abusing the process of the court and for that matter could not ask for any remedy from the court.
He said the position had been that until the contemnor purged himself, he could not be heard and whatever documents had been filed by his counsel should be disregarded and sentenced.
That line of argument brought Mr Amissah to his feet. He argued that it was not the true position of the law and that he only drew the court's attention to the processes that had been filed and was prepared to abide by the court's opinion.
According to him, the contemnor had to obey the court's order, sue for a declaration to that effect or make an application to set aside the order, saying that until those steps had been taken, one had to obey the order.
In view of the court's position not to countenance any further application in respect of the matter, Mr Amissah rendered an apology to the court and surrendered the document without any prejudice.
Gbewaa Ltd contracted a loan from the SG-SSB Bank in 2002 and used the documents as collateral until the loan was repaid.
After that the bank took the applicants to court on the grounds that the company had not finished with the payment but the court, after going into the matter, ruled that the documents should be surrendered because the company was not indebted to the bank.
In its contempt application, Gbewaa Ltd said although when the court gave its order that the respondent bank should surrender the documents its managing director was not in court, counsel was present.
It said subsequently the order was served on the bank but it refused to comply with it.
The bank’s counsel opposed the contempt application because, according to him, it was misconceived and incompetent because the present managing director, a French national, had assumed office in Ghana at a time when the court order had long been given.
Furthermore, the respondent argued that the convict had not been served with the court order, the subject of contempt, and that by the date of service of the said processes on him the bank had long since filed an appeal against the order, while an application for stay of execution pending appeal against the order had been filed as far back as June 14, 2006.
The bank denied having committed any contempt of court in the circumstances.
However, the court ruled that the relevant evidence available was that on April 19, 2006 the order was delivered to the managing director’s office, whereupon his secretary directed the bailiff to serve the order on the Recovery Unit of the bank.
It said the managing director’s secretary understood the order and, therefore, directed the bailiff to the immediate relevant unit of the bank and that in the normal scheme of things, the Secretary at the Recovery Unit, Madam Beatrice Quarshie, had received the document as an official document for and on behalf of her employers, the bank.
The court ruled that it was immaterial that the present managing director was not in office at the time of service of the court order on the bank and that the fact of the matter was that he took office with all the responsibilities and duties attached to the office.
“It will be preposterous to think otherwise. The managing director in office is attachable, once it has been proved that the court’s order has been disobeyed by the respondent bank,” said the court.
LAWYERS IN JAILED MP'S CASE AGREE TO WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS
COUNSEL in the substantive appeal filed by Dan Abodakpi, a former Minister of Trade and Industry, against his 10-year conviction for causing financial loss of $400,000 to the state on have agreed to submit written submissions instead of oral submissions.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal gave counsel for the appellant one week within which to file the written submissions while the respondent is to reply two weeks after that to enable the registrar of the court to fix a date for judgement.
The parties came to the agreement after Mr Tony Lithur, counsel for the jailed Member of Parliament (MP) for Keta, rose to present his oral submissions when the court had requested them to present written submissions instead of making oral submissions.
Abodakpi, who is the sitting MP for Keta, was on February 5, 2007 sentenced to a 10-year hard labour by the Fast Track High Court after being convicted on all seven counts of conspiracy, defrauding by false pretences and wilfully causing financial loss of $400,000 to the state.
His attempt to get a bail pending the appeal failed when the trial court on April 19, 2007, declined to grant his application for bail on the grounds that it was unmeritorious because its refusal would not occasion any miscarriage of justice to him.
The court held that being a sitting MP did not make Abodakpi’s case any exceptional to justify the granting of bail pending an appeal.
The former Trade and Industries Minister was said to have, between May and December 2000, acted, together with the late Victor Selormey, who was a former Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning; Dr Frederick Boadu, a consultant, and other persons with a common purpose, to wilfully cause financial loss of $400,000 to the state through the Trade and Investment Programme (TIP).
The amount was in respect of a feasibility study for the establishment of a Science and Technology Community Park/Valley Project which was meant to enhance the export of non-traditional products.
They were charged with causing the transfer of the cedi equivalent of $400,000 during their tenure of office in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration when they co-chaired the TIP.
The former ministers were accused of causing the transfer from the TIP interest account lodged with ECOBANK Ghana Limited into the personal account of the project consultant, Dr Boadu.
They were arraigned on October 14, 2002 on three counts of conspiracy, two counts of defrauding and two counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state but both of them pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted self-recognisance bail.
Selormey, however, died in the course of the trial.
Meanwhile, Abodakpi’s counsel in his amended grounds of appeal said the trial judge erred in disregarding the evidence of the defence without any reason and described the sentence as unreasonable, excessive, baseless and totally unsupported by the facts and the evidence adduced at the trial.
He stated that the judge failed to make any findings of the specific intent necessary to prove the charges levelled against the appellant.
He said the trial judge erred in refusing to give reasons for imposing the maximum custodial sentence on the appellant.
Counsel said the judge erred in placing undue reliance on the designation of feasibility study in correspondence about the payments to Dr Frederick Boadu when the evidence of the prosecution clearly showed that the designation was irrelevant to the making of the payments.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal gave counsel for the appellant one week within which to file the written submissions while the respondent is to reply two weeks after that to enable the registrar of the court to fix a date for judgement.
The parties came to the agreement after Mr Tony Lithur, counsel for the jailed Member of Parliament (MP) for Keta, rose to present his oral submissions when the court had requested them to present written submissions instead of making oral submissions.
Abodakpi, who is the sitting MP for Keta, was on February 5, 2007 sentenced to a 10-year hard labour by the Fast Track High Court after being convicted on all seven counts of conspiracy, defrauding by false pretences and wilfully causing financial loss of $400,000 to the state.
His attempt to get a bail pending the appeal failed when the trial court on April 19, 2007, declined to grant his application for bail on the grounds that it was unmeritorious because its refusal would not occasion any miscarriage of justice to him.
The court held that being a sitting MP did not make Abodakpi’s case any exceptional to justify the granting of bail pending an appeal.
The former Trade and Industries Minister was said to have, between May and December 2000, acted, together with the late Victor Selormey, who was a former Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning; Dr Frederick Boadu, a consultant, and other persons with a common purpose, to wilfully cause financial loss of $400,000 to the state through the Trade and Investment Programme (TIP).
The amount was in respect of a feasibility study for the establishment of a Science and Technology Community Park/Valley Project which was meant to enhance the export of non-traditional products.
They were charged with causing the transfer of the cedi equivalent of $400,000 during their tenure of office in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration when they co-chaired the TIP.
The former ministers were accused of causing the transfer from the TIP interest account lodged with ECOBANK Ghana Limited into the personal account of the project consultant, Dr Boadu.
They were arraigned on October 14, 2002 on three counts of conspiracy, two counts of defrauding and two counts of wilfully causing financial loss to the state but both of them pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted self-recognisance bail.
Selormey, however, died in the course of the trial.
Meanwhile, Abodakpi’s counsel in his amended grounds of appeal said the trial judge erred in disregarding the evidence of the defence without any reason and described the sentence as unreasonable, excessive, baseless and totally unsupported by the facts and the evidence adduced at the trial.
He stated that the judge failed to make any findings of the specific intent necessary to prove the charges levelled against the appellant.
He said the trial judge erred in refusing to give reasons for imposing the maximum custodial sentence on the appellant.
Counsel said the judge erred in placing undue reliance on the designation of feasibility study in correspondence about the payments to Dr Frederick Boadu when the evidence of the prosecution clearly showed that the designation was irrelevant to the making of the payments.
PASTOR TESTIFIES IN PRESIDENT'S ACCIDENT CASE
Reverend King Joe Osei Kuffuor, the man whose VW Golf car was affected by the accident involving President Kufuor, has told the Accra Fast Track High Court that it was not the policeman on duty at the Opeibea intersection who stopped him to give way to the Presidential convoy.
Rather, he stopped by himself to allow the Presidential convoy to pass when he heard the siren blurring.
Rev Kuffuor was testifying under cross-examination from Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, counsel for Thomas Osei, the man at the centre of the accident which occurred last November.
The witness is the third for the prosecution.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007 and remanded.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
Rev Kuffuor said when he stopped for the convoy to pass the traffic lights at the intersection were working and he had the right of way because the light in his direction had shown green.
He agreed with counsel that he would not be in a position to know whether the traffic light in the direction of the accused person was showing red or not.
According to the witness, he was also not in a position to testify whether when the accused person’s car reached the intersection he (accused person) could not hear the siren blurring.
He agreed with counsel that a car moving from the Aviance direction of the intersection towards the Alliance Francaise area would use the left lane of the road.
Rev Kuffuor said that while he had stopped, he notice other cars, including that of the accused person, with Osei’s moving and coming behind a taxi cab in front of it.
He disagreed with counsel that cars which were in the same direction as the accused person’s did not concern him, likewise the Presidential convoy.
The witness further disagreed with counsel that he was made a prosecution witness in order to avoid being prosecuted for deficiencies about him after investigations into the accident were completed.
He disagreed with suggestions that he was not a man of God but rather assumed that role to deceive the flock.
Rather, he stopped by himself to allow the Presidential convoy to pass when he heard the siren blurring.
Rev Kuffuor was testifying under cross-examination from Mr Kwame Boafo Akuffo, counsel for Thomas Osei, the man at the centre of the accident which occurred last November.
The witness is the third for the prosecution.
Osei was first arraigned before the Motor Court on November 16, 2007 and remanded.
He was discharged by the court on Thursday, December 20, 2007 after the prosecution had filed a nolle prosequi (unwilling to prosecute) but he was re-arrested when he stepped out of the court and put before the Fast Track High court on six counts.
Osei now faces seven counts of use of narcotic drugs, dangerous driving, negligently causing harm, driving under the influence of alcohol, failing to give way to a Presidential convoy and failing to effect change of ownership of vehicle, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Around 11.30 a.m. on November 14, 2007, Osei, who was driving a Mercedes Benz SE 500 saloon car in the inner lane along the Liberation Link from the direction of Aviance towards the 37 Military Hospital, drove into the rear side of the President’s vehicle, in spite of the fact that other motorists had been stopped to allow the President’s convoy to pass.
The driver of the President’s car and the driver of a VW saloon car were treated and discharged, while Osei was admitted for treatment.
The President escaped unhurt.
Rev Kuffuor said when he stopped for the convoy to pass the traffic lights at the intersection were working and he had the right of way because the light in his direction had shown green.
He agreed with counsel that he would not be in a position to know whether the traffic light in the direction of the accused person was showing red or not.
According to the witness, he was also not in a position to testify whether when the accused person’s car reached the intersection he (accused person) could not hear the siren blurring.
He agreed with counsel that a car moving from the Aviance direction of the intersection towards the Alliance Francaise area would use the left lane of the road.
Rev Kuffuor said that while he had stopped, he notice other cars, including that of the accused person, with Osei’s moving and coming behind a taxi cab in front of it.
He disagreed with counsel that cars which were in the same direction as the accused person’s did not concern him, likewise the Presidential convoy.
The witness further disagreed with counsel that he was made a prosecution witness in order to avoid being prosecuted for deficiencies about him after investigations into the accident were completed.
He disagreed with suggestions that he was not a man of God but rather assumed that role to deceive the flock.
HIGH COURT CONVICTS SG-SSB BOSS
AN Accra High Court has convicted the Managing Director of the SG-SSB Bank Ltd, Mr Alain Bellisard, for contempt of court for failing to obey its order.
The court had, on March 26, 2006, ordered the bank to surrender title deeds on a house at Lever Avenue in Sekondi in the Western Region to Gbewaa Civil Engineering Ltd but it refused.
Following the refusal of the bank to surrender the documents, the company applied to the court for an order to commit the bank, particularly its managing director, for contempt of court, which the court upheld.
It admitted the managing director to self-recognisance bail in the sum of GH¢20,000 and gave him 14 days within which to purge himself.
When the case was called on Tuesday, Mr Bellisard was not in court but a letter was produced to the effect that he was indisposed.
The court, therefore, adjourned the sentence to January 29, 2008, by which time if he had purged himself to surrender the document, the court would decide what to do with him.
Gbewaa Civil Engineering Ltd contracted a loan from the bank in 2002 and used the documents as collateral until the loan was repaid.
After that the bank took the applicants to court on the grounds that the company had not finished with the payment but the court, after going into the matter, ruled that the documents should be surrendered because the company was not indebted to the bank.
In its contempt application, Gbewaa Ltd said although when the court gave its order that the respondent bank should surrender the documents its managing director was not in court, the bank’s counsel was present.
It said subsequently the order was served on the bank but it refused to comply with the order.
The bank’s counsel opposed the contempt application because, according to him, it was misconceived and incompetent because the present managing director, a French national, had assumed office in Ghana at a time when the court order had long been given.
Furthermore, the respondent argued that the convict had not been served with the court order, the subject of contempt, and that by the date of service of the said processes on him the bank had long since filed an appeal against the order, while an application for stay of execution pending appeal against the order had been filed as far back as June 14, 2006.
The bank denied having committed any contempt of court in the circumstances.
However, the court ruled that the relevant evidence available was that on April 19, 2006 the order was delivered to the managing director’s office, whereupon his secretary directed the bailiff to serve the order on the Recovery Unit of the bank.
It said the managing director’s secretary understood the order and, therefore, directed the bailiff to the immediate relevant unit of the bank and that in the normal scheme of things, the Secretary at the Recovery Unit, Madam Beatrice Quarshie, had received the document as an official document for and on behalf of her employers, the bank.
The court ruled that it was immaterial that the present managing director was not in office at the time of service of the court order on the bank and that the fact of the matter was that the managing director took office with all the responsibilities and duties attached to the office.
“It will be preposterous to think otherwise. The managing director in office is attachable, once it has been proved that the court’s order has been disobeyed by the respondent bank,” said the court.
Similarly, the court ruled that the two processes relied on by counsel for the bank, namely, a notice of appeal and a motion for stay of execution pending appeal, that the respondent could not be deemed to have disobeyed the court’s order were unfortunate because a mere notice of appeal did not by itself operate as an order of stay of execution. It said in spite of the respondent’s grievance against the court order complained of, until the Court of Appeal reversed the order, the respondents ought to obey it.
Notwithstanding the respondent’s notice of appeal against the order, the court said the proper thing for the respondent to have done was to obey the order rather than wrongly choosing, on legal advice, to disregard it.
It said “by his choice of wilful disobedience of the order, the respondent has fallen liable in contempt of this court. I, accordingly, hereby convict the managing director of the bank as the first officer of the bank”.
The court had, on March 26, 2006, ordered the bank to surrender title deeds on a house at Lever Avenue in Sekondi in the Western Region to Gbewaa Civil Engineering Ltd but it refused.
Following the refusal of the bank to surrender the documents, the company applied to the court for an order to commit the bank, particularly its managing director, for contempt of court, which the court upheld.
It admitted the managing director to self-recognisance bail in the sum of GH¢20,000 and gave him 14 days within which to purge himself.
When the case was called on Tuesday, Mr Bellisard was not in court but a letter was produced to the effect that he was indisposed.
The court, therefore, adjourned the sentence to January 29, 2008, by which time if he had purged himself to surrender the document, the court would decide what to do with him.
Gbewaa Civil Engineering Ltd contracted a loan from the bank in 2002 and used the documents as collateral until the loan was repaid.
After that the bank took the applicants to court on the grounds that the company had not finished with the payment but the court, after going into the matter, ruled that the documents should be surrendered because the company was not indebted to the bank.
In its contempt application, Gbewaa Ltd said although when the court gave its order that the respondent bank should surrender the documents its managing director was not in court, the bank’s counsel was present.
It said subsequently the order was served on the bank but it refused to comply with the order.
The bank’s counsel opposed the contempt application because, according to him, it was misconceived and incompetent because the present managing director, a French national, had assumed office in Ghana at a time when the court order had long been given.
Furthermore, the respondent argued that the convict had not been served with the court order, the subject of contempt, and that by the date of service of the said processes on him the bank had long since filed an appeal against the order, while an application for stay of execution pending appeal against the order had been filed as far back as June 14, 2006.
The bank denied having committed any contempt of court in the circumstances.
However, the court ruled that the relevant evidence available was that on April 19, 2006 the order was delivered to the managing director’s office, whereupon his secretary directed the bailiff to serve the order on the Recovery Unit of the bank.
It said the managing director’s secretary understood the order and, therefore, directed the bailiff to the immediate relevant unit of the bank and that in the normal scheme of things, the Secretary at the Recovery Unit, Madam Beatrice Quarshie, had received the document as an official document for and on behalf of her employers, the bank.
The court ruled that it was immaterial that the present managing director was not in office at the time of service of the court order on the bank and that the fact of the matter was that the managing director took office with all the responsibilities and duties attached to the office.
“It will be preposterous to think otherwise. The managing director in office is attachable, once it has been proved that the court’s order has been disobeyed by the respondent bank,” said the court.
Similarly, the court ruled that the two processes relied on by counsel for the bank, namely, a notice of appeal and a motion for stay of execution pending appeal, that the respondent could not be deemed to have disobeyed the court’s order were unfortunate because a mere notice of appeal did not by itself operate as an order of stay of execution. It said in spite of the respondent’s grievance against the court order complained of, until the Court of Appeal reversed the order, the respondents ought to obey it.
Notwithstanding the respondent’s notice of appeal against the order, the court said the proper thing for the respondent to have done was to obey the order rather than wrongly choosing, on legal advice, to disregard it.
It said “by his choice of wilful disobedience of the order, the respondent has fallen liable in contempt of this court. I, accordingly, hereby convict the managing director of the bank as the first officer of the bank”.
HIGH COURT RESTRAINS SHELL
AN Accra Fast Track High Court has restrained Shell Ghana Limited from terminating the dealership agreement between the company and 17 of its dealers in Kumasi and Accra.
According to the court, once evidence had not been taken in the substantive case, any termination of the agreement would be an exercise in futility.
It, therefore, upheld a motion for interlocutory injunction filed by the plaintiffs against Shell and adjourned the matter sine die.
The court, however, ordered the dealers to make an undertaken within two weeks to pay substantial compensation to Shell if they lost the case.
The dealers sued Shell to seek an order to annul the termination of their dealership agreement which the company said took effect from December 31, 2007.
They described the exercise as null, void, inequitable and unconscionable because they had not been given reasonable notices.
They are further seeking an order to set aside the purported notice of termination or intention not to renew their dealership on the grounds that the notices were unreasonably short, unconscionable, unfair and unlawful.
The court could not hear the motion for injunction last Friday because of procedural problems and, therefore, awarded costs of GH¢200 against Shell and adjourned the matter to yesterday.
The plaintiffs are Godfrey Motey Addo, Esther Mullings, Rebecca Tagoe, Thompson Obimpeh, Osei Bonsu, Ambrose Kumassah, Benjamin Boateng, De-Kuza Akuetey, Titus Owens-Dey, George Russel Teye, Lucy Osafo Agyekum, Emmanuel Inkoom and Samuel Aidoo, all of Accra.
The rest are Robert Osei Bonsu, Richard Puni, Emmanuel Kwasi Donkor and Justice Acheampong, all of Kumasi.
Arguing the motion, counsel for the plaintiffs, Mr S.K. Amoah, said the dealers had worked for Shell variously for periods ranging between one and 30 years and that the last dealership agreement executed between them and Shell was in 2005, which expired in December of that year.
According to him, the plaintiffs had been operating their respective dealerships without any formal agreement since the expiration of the agreement.
He said there was no evidence of renewal of the agreement but the plaintiffs continued to operate in that capacity after an oral agreement between the parties.
Following that arrangement, counsel said the court ought to restrain the defendant because where revocation was without reasonable notice, the court had always restrained.
The plaintiffs, counsel said, had invested huge sums of money in their businesses involving Shell and non-Shell products, equipment and other materials in order to maintain the business of the defendant.
Mr Amoah said the nature and requirements of Shell’s business compelled his clients to rely on loans from their banks to enable them to execute the dealership agreement for the benefit of the defendant company.
He said the agreement between his clients and Shell was not a contract of service, for which reason they had a right to be protected by the injunction.
He said the plaintiffs would incur heavy losses resulting from their inability to dispose of the non-Shell products within the short time that the notice was given and, therefore, the defendant should be restrained, since the company would not suffer any hardship or inconvenience.
Mr Daniel Amarteifio, counsel for Shell, even though opposed the motion and urged the court not to entertain it, admitted that the last agreement between the parties expired in December 2005.
He said no new agreement was executed but the parties continued to regulate their relationship according to the terms of the expired agreement.
Counsel asked the court not to grant the motion because once the plaintiffs had quantified the losses in monetary value, they could be compensated for any losses.
According to him, to ask for reasonable notice amounted to varying the terms of the agreement, adding that so long as the parties continued to regulate their activities, as was contained in the expired agreement, it meant there was a contract between them, the expiration of which could not be enforced in the court.
Mr Amarteifio said a contract of service could not be retrained by an injunction.
According to the court, once evidence had not been taken in the substantive case, any termination of the agreement would be an exercise in futility.
It, therefore, upheld a motion for interlocutory injunction filed by the plaintiffs against Shell and adjourned the matter sine die.
The court, however, ordered the dealers to make an undertaken within two weeks to pay substantial compensation to Shell if they lost the case.
The dealers sued Shell to seek an order to annul the termination of their dealership agreement which the company said took effect from December 31, 2007.
They described the exercise as null, void, inequitable and unconscionable because they had not been given reasonable notices.
They are further seeking an order to set aside the purported notice of termination or intention not to renew their dealership on the grounds that the notices were unreasonably short, unconscionable, unfair and unlawful.
The court could not hear the motion for injunction last Friday because of procedural problems and, therefore, awarded costs of GH¢200 against Shell and adjourned the matter to yesterday.
The plaintiffs are Godfrey Motey Addo, Esther Mullings, Rebecca Tagoe, Thompson Obimpeh, Osei Bonsu, Ambrose Kumassah, Benjamin Boateng, De-Kuza Akuetey, Titus Owens-Dey, George Russel Teye, Lucy Osafo Agyekum, Emmanuel Inkoom and Samuel Aidoo, all of Accra.
The rest are Robert Osei Bonsu, Richard Puni, Emmanuel Kwasi Donkor and Justice Acheampong, all of Kumasi.
Arguing the motion, counsel for the plaintiffs, Mr S.K. Amoah, said the dealers had worked for Shell variously for periods ranging between one and 30 years and that the last dealership agreement executed between them and Shell was in 2005, which expired in December of that year.
According to him, the plaintiffs had been operating their respective dealerships without any formal agreement since the expiration of the agreement.
He said there was no evidence of renewal of the agreement but the plaintiffs continued to operate in that capacity after an oral agreement between the parties.
Following that arrangement, counsel said the court ought to restrain the defendant because where revocation was without reasonable notice, the court had always restrained.
The plaintiffs, counsel said, had invested huge sums of money in their businesses involving Shell and non-Shell products, equipment and other materials in order to maintain the business of the defendant.
Mr Amoah said the nature and requirements of Shell’s business compelled his clients to rely on loans from their banks to enable them to execute the dealership agreement for the benefit of the defendant company.
He said the agreement between his clients and Shell was not a contract of service, for which reason they had a right to be protected by the injunction.
He said the plaintiffs would incur heavy losses resulting from their inability to dispose of the non-Shell products within the short time that the notice was given and, therefore, the defendant should be restrained, since the company would not suffer any hardship or inconvenience.
Mr Daniel Amarteifio, counsel for Shell, even though opposed the motion and urged the court not to entertain it, admitted that the last agreement between the parties expired in December 2005.
He said no new agreement was executed but the parties continued to regulate their relationship according to the terms of the expired agreement.
Counsel asked the court not to grant the motion because once the plaintiffs had quantified the losses in monetary value, they could be compensated for any losses.
According to him, to ask for reasonable notice amounted to varying the terms of the agreement, adding that so long as the parties continued to regulate their activities, as was contained in the expired agreement, it meant there was a contract between them, the expiration of which could not be enforced in the court.
Mr Amarteifio said a contract of service could not be retrained by an injunction.
SUPREME COURT DISMISSES GBESE SUIT
THE Supreme Court has dismissed a motion filed by Nii Tetteh Ahinakwa II and Nii Ayi Bonte II, known in private life as Thomas Okine, of the Akwetey Krobo Saki We of Gbese for a judicial review of an Accra High Court decision in favour of Nii Okaidja III (Bill Annan), the Gbese Mantse, and two others.
The court unanimously ruled that where the decision of the lower court was regularly given, judicial review by the Supreme Court was misplaced and that if the applicants were dissatisfied with the lower court’s ruling, they ought to have appealed, rather than go to the Supreme Court.
It awarded costs of GH¢1,000 against the applicants.
The applicants invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to set aside the High Court ruling of September 26, 2007, award damages and an order of perpetual injunction against Nii Okaidja, Percy Okoe and Okoe Aryee, the interested parties.
However, Nii Okaidja and the others raised a preliminary objection to the motion.
The grounds for the review by the applicants were that the lower court was not clothed with jurisdiction to entertain the matter and, therefore, the judge ought to have struck it out because Nii Okaidja and the others had no locus standi, while there were a series of estoppel and contempt cases against them.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled that those were not known grounds for review, although judicial review was one method by which the court exercised the power granted it by the Constitution to ensure that the lower courts were within the powers conferred on them.
According to the court, the lower court had jurisdiction to entertain the issue raised in the matter that was brought before it.
The Supreme Court said the remedy of judicial review was not open to the applicants and cited many cases to outline the scope of its jurisdiction.
It said although it had jurisdiction in chieftaincy matters, that was the final appellate court regarding those matters and for that reason it upheld the preliminary objection raised by Nii Okaidja and the others.
The court was presided over by Justice Sophia Akuffo, with Justices Julius Ansah, Richard Twum Aninakwa, Sophia Adinyira and S.K. Asiamah as the members.
The Gbese chieftaincy dispute took a new twist following an Accra High Court order on Monday, January 21, 2008 that Nii Okaidja III should take possession of the Gbese palace by 6.05 p.m. that day.
The court restrained Nii Tetteh Ahinakwa II and Nii Ayi Bonte II from interfering with the possession, control and right of occupation of the palace so long as Nii Okaidja remained the Gbese Mantse.
It ordered them to vacate the Gbese palace by 6.00 p.m. on Monday and awarded costs of GH¢500 in favour of the plaintiffs.
The court gave the order in its judgement in the case in which Nii Okaidja and two others sued Nii Ahinakwa and Thomas Okine and sought an order to set aside the writ of possession of the High Court pursuant to leave granted by the court on May 22, 2007 because it was illegal and unlawful.
The plaintiffs also sought for an order of perpetual injunction to restrain the defendant from entering the Gbese palace or in any way interfere with the possession, control and right of occupation of the palace.
The defendants, however, described the judgement as unfortunate because the plaintiffs had no locus in taking over the palace.
A source close to the plaintiffs hinted that an application for a stay of execution pending appeal in the matter had been filed, since there had been a Supreme Court ruling in their favour, while a contempt case was also pending against the plaintiffs.
According to the court, by the terms of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs on February 17, 2003, it was the one who became the Gbese chief who should be entitled to all immovable property of the stool, and having found Nii Okaidja to have established his status as the Gbese chief, he was the one and only person entitled to the Gbese palace, so long as he remained the chief.
The court held that throughout the trial no evidence was brought to show that any elder of Gbese, the king makers or any person from the Dzaase had instituted any destoolment proceeding against Nii Okaidja in any legally recognised or competent chieftaincy tribunal and procured any adverse findings that Nii Okaidja was liable to be destooled.
“Is it not a disturbing state of condition, indeed an awkward unintended arrangement, that while Nii Okaidja remains the functional Gbese Mantse, the functional tools of the office of the Gbese chief should be under the control of an opponent by his occupation of the Gbese stool?” the court queried.
It said it did not think the legal objections raised against the plaintiffs had enough potency to gag especially Nii Okaidja from instituting the action in the court and, therefore, did not see the circumstances under which to deny him the right to take the action.
The court said Nii Okaidja had pleaded that he was installed Gbese Mantse by the king makers and the Dzaase of Gbese on October 8, 2006 and led evidence to fortify that averment without any challenge from the defendants.
It said the judgement being relied on against Nii Okaidja predated his installation as chief of Gbese, while it had never come across the mention of Nii Okaidja as party to any of the matters in the courts over the past years.
The court unanimously ruled that where the decision of the lower court was regularly given, judicial review by the Supreme Court was misplaced and that if the applicants were dissatisfied with the lower court’s ruling, they ought to have appealed, rather than go to the Supreme Court.
It awarded costs of GH¢1,000 against the applicants.
The applicants invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to set aside the High Court ruling of September 26, 2007, award damages and an order of perpetual injunction against Nii Okaidja, Percy Okoe and Okoe Aryee, the interested parties.
However, Nii Okaidja and the others raised a preliminary objection to the motion.
The grounds for the review by the applicants were that the lower court was not clothed with jurisdiction to entertain the matter and, therefore, the judge ought to have struck it out because Nii Okaidja and the others had no locus standi, while there were a series of estoppel and contempt cases against them.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled that those were not known grounds for review, although judicial review was one method by which the court exercised the power granted it by the Constitution to ensure that the lower courts were within the powers conferred on them.
According to the court, the lower court had jurisdiction to entertain the issue raised in the matter that was brought before it.
The Supreme Court said the remedy of judicial review was not open to the applicants and cited many cases to outline the scope of its jurisdiction.
It said although it had jurisdiction in chieftaincy matters, that was the final appellate court regarding those matters and for that reason it upheld the preliminary objection raised by Nii Okaidja and the others.
The court was presided over by Justice Sophia Akuffo, with Justices Julius Ansah, Richard Twum Aninakwa, Sophia Adinyira and S.K. Asiamah as the members.
The Gbese chieftaincy dispute took a new twist following an Accra High Court order on Monday, January 21, 2008 that Nii Okaidja III should take possession of the Gbese palace by 6.05 p.m. that day.
The court restrained Nii Tetteh Ahinakwa II and Nii Ayi Bonte II from interfering with the possession, control and right of occupation of the palace so long as Nii Okaidja remained the Gbese Mantse.
It ordered them to vacate the Gbese palace by 6.00 p.m. on Monday and awarded costs of GH¢500 in favour of the plaintiffs.
The court gave the order in its judgement in the case in which Nii Okaidja and two others sued Nii Ahinakwa and Thomas Okine and sought an order to set aside the writ of possession of the High Court pursuant to leave granted by the court on May 22, 2007 because it was illegal and unlawful.
The plaintiffs also sought for an order of perpetual injunction to restrain the defendant from entering the Gbese palace or in any way interfere with the possession, control and right of occupation of the palace.
The defendants, however, described the judgement as unfortunate because the plaintiffs had no locus in taking over the palace.
A source close to the plaintiffs hinted that an application for a stay of execution pending appeal in the matter had been filed, since there had been a Supreme Court ruling in their favour, while a contempt case was also pending against the plaintiffs.
According to the court, by the terms of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs on February 17, 2003, it was the one who became the Gbese chief who should be entitled to all immovable property of the stool, and having found Nii Okaidja to have established his status as the Gbese chief, he was the one and only person entitled to the Gbese palace, so long as he remained the chief.
The court held that throughout the trial no evidence was brought to show that any elder of Gbese, the king makers or any person from the Dzaase had instituted any destoolment proceeding against Nii Okaidja in any legally recognised or competent chieftaincy tribunal and procured any adverse findings that Nii Okaidja was liable to be destooled.
“Is it not a disturbing state of condition, indeed an awkward unintended arrangement, that while Nii Okaidja remains the functional Gbese Mantse, the functional tools of the office of the Gbese chief should be under the control of an opponent by his occupation of the Gbese stool?” the court queried.
It said it did not think the legal objections raised against the plaintiffs had enough potency to gag especially Nii Okaidja from instituting the action in the court and, therefore, did not see the circumstances under which to deny him the right to take the action.
The court said Nii Okaidja had pleaded that he was installed Gbese Mantse by the king makers and the Dzaase of Gbese on October 8, 2006 and led evidence to fortify that averment without any challenge from the defendants.
It said the judgement being relied on against Nii Okaidja predated his installation as chief of Gbese, while it had never come across the mention of Nii Okaidja as party to any of the matters in the courts over the past years.
COURT HEARS CASE AGAINST GIMPA RECTOR
THE Accra Fast Track High Court has begun hearing the case in which Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr is seeking an order to restrain Dr Stephen Adei from holding himself out as the Rector and professor of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).
Mr Faibille wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of Rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, when the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as Rector.
Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr Faibille said it was a very big fraud being perpetuated on students and the people of Ghana if Dr Adei was allowed to use the title ‘professor’ and also allowed to be at post in such a public institution.
Mr Faibille, who is a lawyer and publisher of the Ghanaian Observer newspaper, has sued Dr Adei, the Governing Council of GIMPA and GIMPA as an entity.
According to him, Dr Adei was appointed by the then Court of Governors of GIMPA as Director-General of GIMPA on October 1, 1999 for a five-year term. However, after the expiration of his tenure in October 2004, Dr Adei was still at post.
He said when Dr Adei’s term of office expired, Dr Adei verbally told the GIMPA Governing Council to renew his appointment, after which he was appointed as the acting Rector from January 1, 2005.
The plaintiff said beyond that no letter or communication had been sent to Dr Adei confirming his appointment in the acting capacity.
Dr Adei, he said, was not duly appointed for the period that he had been in office from October 1, 2005 to date, adding that GIMPA was a public institution and so the anomaly must be properly handled.
“The conduct of the defendants has been most irregular and improper, against the background that GIMPA is a cherished public tertiary institution,” he stated.
Mr Faibille noted that the first time he realised that Dr Adei had been holding himself out as a professor was on July 5, 2002 when the Daily Graphic published a story about his appointment by a Zimbabwe-based institution which was affiliated to the University of Zimbabwe.
He said research that he (the plaintiff) conducted on GIMPA indicated that Dr Adei was a Professor in Leadership but added that the GIMPA statute states that the position of a full professor could not be earned unless the applicant first applied for an associate professorship and went through a vetting procedure.
Mr Faibille said Dr Adei had never been vetted by the GIMPA promotion committee, even if he had been appointed a professor by any institution, as required, and that an assertion by the GIMPA governing body that it was aware of the appointment was not correct.
He questioned how the body could rely on only a newspaper report to base its assertion, since the report could be false, saying that “the African Leadership and Management Academy based in Zimbabwe has not appointed Dr Adei as a professor, neither has it conferred a professorial title, whether full, associate or adjunct, on him”.
“Records at GIMPA show that Dr Adei has not been vetted for the professorial position he claims. He must be restrained because now that the issue has come out that the governing body inherited minutes of a meeting during which Dr Adei’s appointment was mentioned then it means that the procedure has not been followed.
“The fact that the council is aware of Dr Adei’ professorial position is even dangerous because it is coming from a newspaper publication, especially when it can be false,” he said.
Mr Faibille further described as more dangerous the GIMPA Governing Council’s assertion that it was taking steps to confer a full professor on Dr Adei, since, from the statute of GIMPA, it was clear that the first position was an associate professor, after which one was eligible to apply for a full professorship.
He said Dr Adei was not an associate professor at GIMPA and he did not meet the conditions to apply for a full professor since he had been an adjunct professor of the Zimbabwe-based institute.
Hearing continues.
Mr Faibille wants the court to order that Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such.
He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of Rector, since it was vacant because, according to him, when the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he had not been re-appointed as Rector.
Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr Faibille said it was a very big fraud being perpetuated on students and the people of Ghana if Dr Adei was allowed to use the title ‘professor’ and also allowed to be at post in such a public institution.
Mr Faibille, who is a lawyer and publisher of the Ghanaian Observer newspaper, has sued Dr Adei, the Governing Council of GIMPA and GIMPA as an entity.
According to him, Dr Adei was appointed by the then Court of Governors of GIMPA as Director-General of GIMPA on October 1, 1999 for a five-year term. However, after the expiration of his tenure in October 2004, Dr Adei was still at post.
He said when Dr Adei’s term of office expired, Dr Adei verbally told the GIMPA Governing Council to renew his appointment, after which he was appointed as the acting Rector from January 1, 2005.
The plaintiff said beyond that no letter or communication had been sent to Dr Adei confirming his appointment in the acting capacity.
Dr Adei, he said, was not duly appointed for the period that he had been in office from October 1, 2005 to date, adding that GIMPA was a public institution and so the anomaly must be properly handled.
“The conduct of the defendants has been most irregular and improper, against the background that GIMPA is a cherished public tertiary institution,” he stated.
Mr Faibille noted that the first time he realised that Dr Adei had been holding himself out as a professor was on July 5, 2002 when the Daily Graphic published a story about his appointment by a Zimbabwe-based institution which was affiliated to the University of Zimbabwe.
He said research that he (the plaintiff) conducted on GIMPA indicated that Dr Adei was a Professor in Leadership but added that the GIMPA statute states that the position of a full professor could not be earned unless the applicant first applied for an associate professorship and went through a vetting procedure.
Mr Faibille said Dr Adei had never been vetted by the GIMPA promotion committee, even if he had been appointed a professor by any institution, as required, and that an assertion by the GIMPA governing body that it was aware of the appointment was not correct.
He questioned how the body could rely on only a newspaper report to base its assertion, since the report could be false, saying that “the African Leadership and Management Academy based in Zimbabwe has not appointed Dr Adei as a professor, neither has it conferred a professorial title, whether full, associate or adjunct, on him”.
“Records at GIMPA show that Dr Adei has not been vetted for the professorial position he claims. He must be restrained because now that the issue has come out that the governing body inherited minutes of a meeting during which Dr Adei’s appointment was mentioned then it means that the procedure has not been followed.
“The fact that the council is aware of Dr Adei’ professorial position is even dangerous because it is coming from a newspaper publication, especially when it can be false,” he said.
Mr Faibille further described as more dangerous the GIMPA Governing Council’s assertion that it was taking steps to confer a full professor on Dr Adei, since, from the statute of GIMPA, it was clear that the first position was an associate professor, after which one was eligible to apply for a full professorship.
He said Dr Adei was not an associate professor at GIMPA and he did not meet the conditions to apply for a full professor since he had been an adjunct professor of the Zimbabwe-based institute.
Hearing continues.
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