Assemblies urged to help SMEs to solve problems

Assemblies urged to help SMEs to solve problems

An International Labour Organisation (ILO) consultant has appealed to Metropolitan, Municipal and District assemblies to identify problems facing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and help them to solve them.

Mr Emmanuel Baisie, an ILO Decent Work Project consultant, said by so doing the SMEs would be in a position to contribute to the development of the assemblies.

He said this at a workshop on Local Economic Development for members of the Mfantseman Municipal Assembly at Saltpond.

Local Economic Development (LED) is the identification of local economic resources for development to facilitate growth of the assemblies.

Mr Baisie appealed to the assemblies to involve their members in resource identification to enable them to contribute to their development.

He urged the SPGEs to mobilise all small Business Groups into associations to make it easier for the assemblies to collect taxes from their members.

Mr George Acquah, the Chairman of Effutu Municipal SPGE, said skills training must be linked to marketing.

He said a number of skills training interventions could not help the beneficiaries because they did not get markets for their products, making their conditions worse than before.

Mr Henry Kweku Hayfron, the Mfantseman Municipal chief Executive, said the government attached importance to the private sector as the engine of growth and was making every effort to promote it.

He said the private sector would be enhanced for it to play a leading role in reducing unemployment in the country.

Mr John Etuah, the Municipal Budget Analyst and Focal Person for the Decent Work Project, commended the ILO for its interest in promoting small business associations.

The ILO Decent Work Project is being implemented in eight Municipal and District Assemblies in the Central Region.

These are Mfantseman, Effutu, and Agona East and Agona West Municipal Assembly, Gomoa East and Gomoa West Municipal

Assemblies, Ajumako Enyan-Essiam, Twifu-Heman-Lower Denkyira and Awutu-Senya District assemblies.

Source: GNA

Cocoa Marketing Clerks told it’s criminal to adjust scales

Cocoa Marketing Clerks (M/Cs) have been cautioned to desist from exploiting farmers through the manipulations of their weighing scales.

“It is a criminal offence to tamper with weighing scales with the intention to cheat farmers,” Mr Emmanuel Obeng, Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar District Officer of the Quality Control Division (QCD) of COCOBOD, gave the warning.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Suhum, Mr Obeng warned that any M/C caught cheating cocoa farmers by adjusting their scales would face the full rigours of the law.

To help avoid cheating, “farmers should adhere to the guidelines given them by cocoa officials, to practice the seven-day fermentation period and allowing the beans to dry well,” he stated, adding that it would also drastically reduce the incidence of purple, slate and other defects in the beans.

The District Officer of QCD said the country’s cocoa, referred to as premium commodity due to its quality, should be sustained to enjoy a much higher price than other cocoa exports on the international commodities market.

Nana Debrah Amanor, District Chief Farmer, based at Nsranor near Suhum who has cocoa farms in three districts in the Eastern Region, had earlier told the GNA at Akim Oda in the Birim Central Municipality that it had been the practice of some of the clerks in Akim Oda, Asamankese, Suhum and Kibi operational areas, all in the Eastern Region, to manipulate their weighing scales to cheat farmers.

According to Nana Amanor, a retired headmaster, some of the high-time cocoa farmers weigh their cocoa beans in their homes before sending the commodity to the various societies/sheds, where they are able to detect the disparities on their respective scales, to the farmers’ disadvantage.

“It is only proper to give back to cocoa farmers our fair share of the proceeds of our labour and toil,” Nana Amanor noted, adding that farming used to be a lucrative venture for people living in rural areas but that the trend had changed.

When contacted, Mr Seth Anthony, District Officer (D/O) of Royal Commodities Limited (ROCO), a cocoa buying company at Akim Swedru, told the GNA that most of the clerks claimed that the adjustment was to make up for losses in weight when the cocoa beans, which might not be well dried at the time of purchase, later dried up.

Mr Anthony explained further that cocoa beans that were not properly fermented and thoroughly dried up, apart from shrinking in size and losing weight, also developed a lot of defects.

He stressed that cocoa farmers could help check the cheating by clerks if they attached importance to proper fermentation and drying of the beans, before sending them to the sheds to sell.

The D/O pointed out that replacing the “old bar weighing scales” with modern “easy-to-read clock-type scales” was a move aimed at assisting the farmers to have their produce accurately weighed so as to avoid cheating.

Source: GNA

Extractors of industrial minerals urged to comply with regulations

Mr. Evans Adade, a Senior Mines Inspector, on Tuesday called on extractors of industrial minerals to comply with regulations in order to protect the environment, lives and property.

He made the call at a one-day workshop on “Responsible Exploitation of Industrial Minerals” organized by the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission for extractors of industrial minerals at Takoradi.

Mr. Adade who was speaking on the draft Mining and Explosives Regulations, said a lot of damage has been caused to the environment and property by extractors of industrial minerals who failed to follow regulations.

According to him, the draft regulations would empower the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission to enter, inspect and examine any mine, quarry, works or associated plant to ensure compliance.

Mr. Adade said inspectors of the division would also determine whether the safety and health of workers were being protected.

He said the division could hold inquiries into accidents and impose fines and penalties when necessary.

Mr. Adade said minors are not to engage in mining adding, “No person should be employed in any mine, quarry, works or associated plant unless that person is 18 years or above”.

He said: “In the case of an underground mine, all persons employed should be over 21 years”.

Miss Roberta Ghanson, Regional Fire Safety Officer, who spoke on: “Fire Prevention and Management”, advised business establishments to obtain Fire Certificates.

She said the certificates are issued to institutions after they had put in place fire safety measures.

Miss Ghanson said the certificates are renewed after 12 months and could be withdrawn if fire safety measures are overlooked.

Mr. Alfred Ayan, a Senior Programme Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said methods being used by some mining companies to detonate explosives are causing concern.

He said another challenge facing the EPA is the presence of hand breaking operators in residential areas.

Mr. Ayan said the agency would stop them from operating in those areas because of the health and safety of people in the communities.

Source: GNA

Vice President’s chairmanship of Ghana Police Council criticized

Mr. Kojo Asante, Head of Programmes at the Center for Democratic Development (CDD)-Ghana, has criticized the constitutional requirement that makes a sitting Vice President, Chairman of the Police Council.

Mr. Asante said this rendered the Police Council “almost immune to criticism because of the personality involved, and minimises the opportunity for public scrutiny of the work of the Council”.

He made the critique when delivering a lecture at the launch of a think-tank, African Centre for Development Law and Policy (ACDLP), in Accra on Tuesday.

His topic was: “Policing, Security and Development: Challenges and Prospects under Ghana’s Fourth Republic”.

The ACDLP, which will be concentrating on issues of criminal justice reforms, governance, advocacy and human rights, clinical legal education, is hosted by the Law School of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration.

Mr. Asante said just like the Interior and Defence Committees of Parliament, the Council rarely made a public statement or even responded to any questions from the public even though most of the concerns of the public bordered on security.

He said the state should take a long term view of addressing policing issues by strengthening democratic civilian control and eliminate political interference and control for effective policing.

“In the context of intense political competition, the police as an independent and impartial enforcer and promoter of civil and political rights are needed now more than ever”, he argued.

He said incentives such as promotion, transfer and merit-based appointments that beholden the police to politicians must be reviewed, as well as ensure fixed term secured appointments, strengthen oversight responsibility of the Interior and Defence Committees of Parliament.

Mr Asante kicked against keeping the police personnel in barracks saying this was not in tandem with modern-day policing.

He proposed that a percentage of government revenue as applicable to district assemblies, be put aside for strengthening political and governance institutions, and in this case, the Police Service, to acquire logistics, employ more hands and employ technology such as video cameras to film crime scenes to enhance their work especially investigations.

He said to reduce persistent abuse of human rights associated with the police, the service must look seriously at the way in which it assesses the suspicion of crimes and subsequent arrest.

Mr. Asante commended the police service for the initiative of partnering the citizenry in fighting crime as well as improving the understanding of police activities in the community

Mrs. Georgina T. Wood, Chief Justice, said the challenge of harnessing the gains of law in national development has continued to confront “us as a country in respect of which we need to overcome”.

The Chief Justice said this in a speech read for her by Justice Ernest Gbeadegbe, Supreme Court judge on the launch African Center for Development Law and Policy.

She said the launch marks the take off of an institution that seeks to bridge the gap between civil society and academia.

“Even more significant is that it marks a significant and meaningful stride towards advancing the frontiers of legal knowledge, scholarship and research in Ghana and beyond”, the Chief Justice added.

Mrs. Wood noted that other jurisdictions have developed and experimented with models that have largely worked and seen radical transformations in social progress.

“We in Ghana need to recognize the imperatives of this and exploit the utility of law in development… it is yet for law to play its role effectively in social engineering, legislation must be based on and backed by solid research data and information, and legal education must be reformed and re-tuned to reflect the changing dynamics of the time”, she observed.

The Chief Justice said the initiative would complement others such as the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research based in the University of Ghana, Legon, in driving the agenda on a research-led development policy formulation in Ghana.

She cautioned that as the country deepens its governance system and ethic, there was the need to equally work hard at educating the citizenry on important issues affecting the country.

Professor Agyeman Badu, Rector, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), said the centre will complement the GIMPA Law School as well as support its mission.

Professor Samuel N. Wood, who chaired the event, called on the centre to ensure its works are based on cutting edge research and deep thinking, saying, this would make people believe in the centre and its works.

Source: GNA