My Ghana Electronic Desk

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Leading agro-based commodity company OLAM Ghana Limited, Friday, February 24, 2012, launched a multi-million dollar wheat milling facility at the Tema. Commenting on the launch, Head of Marketing at OLAM Ghana Limited, Regina Ntim-Addae, expressed the hope that when the wheat milling plant becomes fully operational it would generate employment for a good number of local hands, adding that OLAM is committed to skills development of the Ghanaian worker. OLAM’s multi-million dollar wheat milling plant is an investment, which is expected to become a huge catalyst for the socio-economic development and growth of Ghana and expected to produce flour in large quantities, to cater for both the local and foreign market. Prior to the launch on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 the company fed some 700 students at the Kpone Methodist 2 Basic School to wholesome meals and confectionaries. The donation formed part of the company’s CSR policy, and also as part of series of events l

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Ghanaian students from some selected senior high schools in the country and their foreign counterparts have been brought together in an entrepreneurial partnership named as the Enterprise without Borders (EwB). The initiative, a cross-border entrepreneurship programme, which has been made possible by global not-for-profit organisation, Junior Achievement   (JA) in collaboration with leading mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, is aimed at g iving students running mini-companies the opportunity to create international partnerships as part of their JA-YE (Junior Achievement Youth Employment) experience. Through a website – Enterprise without Borders (EwB) portal, teachers and schools register for participation, while students upload their company profiles and enter an entrepreneurial ‘dating game’. A statement announcing the partnership says EwB is about students sharing good ideas; selling each others’ products in each others’ markets; reducing costs by getting cer

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission who has presided over five successful elections in the country since 1992, has assured Ghanaians that steps have been taken to safeguard data that will be collated through the biometric process. Speaking in Accra Wednesday at a dialogue on preparations the Commission has made so far concerning Ghana’s upcoming general elections in December, he said the EC has set up a technical committee comprising staff of the Commission and representatives of the political parties to examine together with the vendor, ways of achieving data security. To that end, the EC chairman, who will be presiding over Ghana’s sixth successive Parliamentary and Presidential elections on December 7, 2012, said registration will be done in the open and only at the polling station or other approved place, in the presence of party and other observers. In order to ensure protection of data from unauthorised

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Chairperson of EFG, Ajoa Yeboah-Afari (l) being taken through a mock registration The Electoral Commission of Ghana has disclosed that the biometric registration of all eligible Ghanaian voters will be conducted in four phases in all regions of the country, using 7,000 kits. It says each phase will take 10 days including Saturdays and Sundays, thus bringing the period for the entire exercise to 40 days, with the first phase starting on March 24 and ending April 2, 2012. The second phase will begin April 4 and end April 13, third phase scheduled for April 15 with completion on April 24 and the fourth and last from April 26 to May 5, 2012. Revealing this at a dialogue arranged by the Editors Forum, Ghana in Accra Wednesday, February 15 with the theme: “Election 2012: The EC’s preparations so far”, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC), said   the one day break at the end of each phase is to allow the registration team go through

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Equipment for Ghana's Biometric Registration Responding to the consternation and controversy that have emanated since the Electoral Commission of   Ghana declared its intention to go biometric, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the EC’s Chairman, has stressed that the country will only do biometric registration of voters and not biometric voting as has been widely rumoured. He said the voting process of 2008 where ballots were cast manually will still be maintained, once biometric data of all eligible voters who avail themselves to be registered is compiled. Dr. Afari-Gyan assuaged the fears of Ghanaians, when he spoke on the topic, “Election 2012: The EC’s preparations so far” at a dialogue organised by the Editors Forum, Ghana (EFG), an association of Editors and senior journalists affiliated to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), and which has as its Chair, former GJA President, Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, in Accra yesterday. Demystifying the biometric technology, h

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE NMC Chair, Ambassador Kabral Amihere leads GJA excecutives in a mock registration Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr.   Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has announced that the upcoming biometric registration of all eligible voters in the country is aimed at replacing the existing voters register. He has therefore urged all eligible Ghanaians to make themselves available for the exercise, once it gets underway in March 2012. “The exercise will be a complete replacement of the existing voters register and thereby render any previous voter registration invalid for purposes of voting in the 2012 elections,” he said in Accra Wednesday, February 15, 2012. Ghana’s EC boss was addressing a dialogue organised by the Editors Forum, Ghana, with sponsorship from the Ghana Commercial Bank and the Electoral Commission of Ghana, on the theme “Election 2012: The EC’s preparations so far”. Disclosing that in view of the timely releases of funds, the delivery of equipment and oth

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE International Food and Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) research fellow and lead author of a new report “Beyond the Arab Awakening: Policies and Investments for Poverty Reduction and Food Security”, Clemens Breisinger, has stated that “As food security was one of the triggers of the Arab Awakening, finding policy responses to food insecurity, is particularly important for policymakers in Arab countries.” His statement, which was contained in a press release from the institute, added, “Given the high levels of growing dissatisfaction of people in the region, urgent actions should be taken.” Meanwhile, according to the release issued by IFPRI on February 6, 2012, p overty and income inequality rates in the Arab world are higher than official numbers have suggested, while food security and poverty are particularly closely linked in Arab countries, due to high vulnerability to food-related external shocks, including food price volatility, natural disasters, increas

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Kenya’s top runners will join the public later this month for an historic half-marathon in Nairobi that will celebrate the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) four decades of working for the environment and raising public awareness of what needs to be done to ensure the sustainable future of the planet, says UNEP. Organised by UNEP in partnership with the Paul Tergat Foundation and Athletics Kenya, the 21-kilometre celebratory run on 19 February will start at the Kenya Technical Teachers College in Gigiri, Nairobi, according to a press statement announcing the event. The half-marathon will coincide with the convening of the 12th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GC/GMEF), while dignitaries and officials from 150 countries attending the meeting are being invited to participate in a shorter five-kilometre run. Featuring will be champion runners Paul Tergat who held the world marathon record from 2003-2007and Patrick

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE World’s leading mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, has sponsored a competition for mobile applications developers in West Africa (Create for Millions Competition), which has produced three (3) winners. The competition was specifically a move to push for the development of quality applications for their S40 mobile platform and to live up to its promise to connect the next billion to the internet using its platform, the Nokia phone. According to Mr. James Rutherfoord, Vice President of Nokia West Africa, the competition was part of Nokia’s strategy to deliver mobile phones and services for the next billion. Stating that “competitions of this nature would help improve the quality of locally relevant apps on Nokia’s range of devices,” he disclosed that West African developers were one of the most active in participating in the global leg of the apps competition at the end of 2011. Nokia said the apps that won from West Africa include: My cash by teXs; Maths Practice

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Nana Akyereba III Nana Akyereba III, Queenmother, Efrim Traditional Area, Sekondi, Ghana, has charged the   country’s health authorities to better equip traditional birth attendants (TBAs), as they are the ones assisting with child delivery in the remotest parts of the nation. She stated that though the TBAs are often tagged as illiterates, they are the ones saving the lives of Ghana’s women folk at the countryside, cottages and hamlets who do not have access to clinics and hospitals. “TBAs are classified as illiterates and sometimes tagged as illegal,” she said. Nana Akyereba, also a member of the Pathfinders Outreach Ministry, was contributing at a dialogue on maternal healthcare organised for religious bodies and opinion leaders, by international non-governmental organisation, Oxfam and partners in Accra, last week. She also lamented that although there are only few old midwives and maternal healthcare personnel who are often based in the big towns and

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki of the NEPAD Agency and Mr. Yves Boudot of AFD The NEPAD Agency Thursday, February 2, 2012, signed a Grant Facility Agreement (GFA) with French Development Agency (AFD), a French public institution, towards the financing of the NEPAD ICT broadband infrastructure network for West, Central and North Africa project. The grant of one million three hundred and fifty thousand Euros (EUR 1,350,000,00), was made available to NEPAD Agency by the European Union Infrastructure Trust Fund (EU-ITF), a European donor coordinated fund, through the AFD. A press statement from the NEPAD Agency announcing this, said the project is part of Umojanet, a terrestrial network that will link every African country to its neighbours and will connect to Uhurunet, to realise the dream of the cross-border continental NEPAD Network. According to the statement issued Friday, February 3, 2012 from Midrand South Africa, the grant completes the initial funds of 850 0

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE UK-based International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), yesterday February 1, 2012, began a policy dialogue in Ghana, that aims to reshape agricultural research to serve development goals and the public good. According to IIED, the three-day dialogue which ends on Friday, February 3, 2012, has in attendance UK parliamentarians and civil servants, as well as African farmers, international donors and scientists. A press release announcing the dialogue said the event will be chaired by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, and the executive director of Oxfam-Novib, Farah Karimi. IIED explained that UK-based parliamentarians, the media, and members of the international development community will participate in the dialogue through a live video link hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group of Agroecology in Westminster. The meeting will also bring staff from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Dr. Agyepong handing over the keys to the vehicle to Apostle Asiedu as the other executives look on. Waste management giant, Zoomlion Ghana Limited, has donated a double cabin Nissan Navara Pick-Up valued at $28,000 to the National Evangelism Ministry of the Church of Pentecost, to support its evangelism programmes. The donation took place on Wednesday, February 1, 2012, when the National Executives of the Ministry paid a courtesy call on the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong, a member of the church, to congratulate him on the many awards he has won in recent times for the good things he is doing for the nation. Dr. Agyepong expressed gratitude to God, by whose might and power he believes Zoomlion and its sister companies in the Jospong Group have grown from strength to strength. “I thank you the clergy for being solidly behind me and supporting me with unceasing prayers which have brought us this far”, Dr. Agyepong stated,