Abrogate Acqua Vitens contract -NGO

Posted: The Chronicle } Tuesday, March 24, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The Essential Services Platform (ESP), a non governmental organisation has called on the government to abrogate the management contract she signed with Messrs. Acqua Vitens Rand Limited to manage the water system in the country.
In a statement issued and signed by Ruby Kissiedu, the organisation attributed the drop in urban water coverage from 70% in the year 2000 to 57% presently, to the failure of the urban water reforms and especially to the management contract being executed by the company, and therefore, asked government to take steps to show them the exit.
The group has also called on government to review the procurement processes and make it transparent and open to public participation and scrutiny.
This is in view of the fact that procurement in the water sector has been one of the conduits for the supply of sub-standard services and also a fertile ground for bribery and corruption, which compounds the water crisis.
Though the recent budget statement presented to Parliament gave indication of government’s commitment to expand and repair a number of water systems, the group has demanded to see some actual figures to spend on these projects and not mere rhetorics.
Rural water has seen a marginal increase but not significant enough to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015. Government has also been asked to tackle the sanitation problems and national issues and seal all leakages in the contract and execution of all sanitation contracts in the sector.
“We are reminding the government of its campaign promise to allot GH¢30 million to the sanitation sector,” the statement emphasised.
This it said, was because the sanitation is not a political cake to be shared among party faithfuls, saying “it is our hope that this time round, government will desist from giving sanitation contracts to unqualified individuals and companies and make the sector a professional one.”
Whilst asking government to achieve at least 65% of the targeted borehole construction in the four years of its governance, the group also reminded them of its 100-day sanitation pledge.
On the issue of health, The Essential Services Platform noted that even though government has pledged to expand midwifery and nursing training institutions; deploy qualified nurses and midwives; improve comprehensive abortion care services and the provision of treated mosquito nets for pregnant women and new mothers are important strategic initiatives there was still need for government to ensure that quality training standards were applied in these institutions in line with the expansion exercise.
This, it said, has the possibility of averting the situation of falling standards and to maintain high level discipline and dedication to service the sector, to help reduce the high rate of avoidable maternal deaths in line with the achievement of the fifth target on the MDGs.
Whilst commending the government’s pledge to improve claims management under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the group noted that looking at the critical nature of health delivery in the country, there was the need for government to expedite action on it.
“It is of utmost importance that government incorporates anti retroviral drugs into the list of drugs provided under the NHIS to lessen the burden on HIV patients”, it stressed.

Essential Service wants GETFUND probed

Posted: The Chronicle } Tuesday, March 24, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

A Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) is leading the crusade for thorough investigations into the activities and operations of the management of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND), which has been riddled with multiple allegations of financial impropriety.
The NGO, The Essential Services Platform has, therefore, asked the Mills administration to as a matter of urgency institute investigations into the books of the GETFUND to uncover the rot at the Secretariat.
Under the current circumstance, it noted that contractors with outstanding projects are not being paid because of the lack of funds and, therefore, called on government to put in place structures to make management of the fund more transparent, accountable and efficient. This was contained in a statement signed by Ruby Kissiedu on behalf of the organisation.
Given that inflation is about 20% and the fact that the 2009 budget has allocated GH¢275 million to the GETFUND as compared to GH¢ 204 million in the year 2008 (about 26% increase), it noted that actual increase in the allocation for the fund is rather small.
Under current educational reforms (2007-2008), kindergarten education has become part of compulsory basic education.However, as at 2007-2008, there were nearly 2,000 primary schools without kindergartens.
The group has thus expressed the hope that this lapse will be remedied and teachers trained for the kindergarten level, stressing “it is also hoped that the NDC will implement its manifesto promise of instituting one training facility for kindergarten teachers in each region.”
The statement commended government for increasing the Capitation Grant to GH¢4.50 (a 50% increase), but emphasised that if taken into consideration the growing inflation rate of over 20%, the 50% increase is nothing to write home about.
“It is, therefore, not clear whether the same deductions for sports and culture, amounting to about 30% of the grant and withheld at the district level will be made”, it asked rhetorically, stressing the need for pupils with disabilities to be granted additional funds, giving their difficult circumstance.”
The ESP believes that under the circumstance, the criterion of a threshold for rural school would be essential in ensuring equity in the disbursement of the grant, and therefore, called for the stringent and transparent implementation of this grant by the appropriate authorities in order for beneficiaries benefit from it.
Also, the group expressed hope that the new administration will maintain the practice whereby the Capitation Grant is only available to public schools, cautioning that “Under no circumstance should private schools benefit from the Capitation Grant.”
The statement also lauded government for its pledge to provide free uniforms to one million pupils from September 2009 at a cost of GH¢ 7.00 each in the most deprived areas and the provision of free exercise books.
In order to keep good hygiene, it emphasised the need for the uniform to be two sets for each student, stressing that it may be better to institute these interventions on a pilot basis for at least the first year, and then reduce the number of pupils who qualify so that only the most deprived can be given at least two sets of uniforms and the required number of books.
It also recommended to government to consider giving teachers more incentives to make their work attractive. It proposed “An allowance of at least 20% of basic salary could be offered to those who go to the deprived areas.” Considering the circumstance under which most schools in the country find themselves, the NGO also asked government to pay attention to maintaining school buildings all over the country since many of them are decrepit, have cracks, leaking roofs and lack basic facilities such as water and toilets.

Controversy over expansion of Electoral College

More supporters express their opinion
Posted: The Chronicle } Monday, March 23, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The debate over whether to amend the Constitution of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to expand its Electoral College or maintain the status quo is gradually generating a lot of interest with proposals coming from various stakeholders in the party.
One school of thought, including Samuel Awuku, a member of the New Juaben-South constituency of the party are pushing for the party to maintain the provisions in the constitution with a few changes that could give automatic voting rights to some key members of the party, the Diaspora Forum of the NPP holds a different view, advocating for the expansion of the Electoral College to include all paid-up members of the party.
Latest in the series of proposals forwarded to the leadership of the party is that of the all-powerful NPP Diaspora Forum, whose influence in the party cannot be underestimated.
Somewhere last week, the group sent one of such proposals to the party’s Asylum Down headquarters through Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy.
In their proposal, the Diasporans who have a strong membership base have asked that the party’s constitution be amended to make provision for ‘one-man one-vote’. According to them, this would not only make the party more democratic but also make it richer, whilst reducing the incidence of corruption that is often associated with primaries. To Dr. Kennedy, all the three things are important, stressing that “It will generate more money for the party, because if you are not paid-up you can’t vote.”
In an interview with the paper, he noted -“obviously if 100,000 people are voting in your Presidential primaries, it is better than 2,000 people, making it more democratic.”
He further emphasised that this has the tendency of eliminating corruption in the party’s primaries since it gets the figures beyond the drivable number.
The Diaspora Forum have thus proposed an amendment of Article 3 of the party’s constitution, which reads -“Any person who desires to become a member of the party may enrol for membership in any Parliamentary constituency where the person resides or hails from, in any overseas branch”, to include “at any TESCON, at the Regional office where he hails from, through the internet, at the National office or at any other place that the National Executives may designate from time to time.”
They have also asked that the constitution be amended to give certain rights to those of them living in the Diaspora. The Diasporans have thus proposed that during the national delegates conference, “all overseas branches shall be entitled to at least 25 voting delegates to be apportioned amongst Diaspora branches based on the distribution of paid-up members”, with “two representatives of the Diaspora on the national executive committee who shall be appointed by the National Chairman with the advice and consent of Diaspora members.”
Further, the group is also asking for a “foreign desk representative/operative of the party shall be appointed by the National Executives upon the recommendation of the Diaspora”, with another proposal for the party’s National annual delegates conference/congress to be attended by at least 25 delegates from the Diaspora, all the party’s Members of Parliament, and ten TESCON delegates.
For this reason, the group has among others proposed the amendment of Article 4 (I) of the party’s Constitution which reads “There shall be kept in the office of each constituency a register of members” to become “there shall be kept in each Regional office a register of members, by Constituency and TESCON members in that Region, by institution. The National Secretariat shall keep a register of all members, Constituency, Region, Institution and overseas branch as the case may be.”
Samuel Awuku however believes that no matter how good the idea for expansion of the Electoral College might sound, it was likely to affect the fortunes of the party. He is of the opinion that the proposal for an expansion is none but a populist proposal, which would have serious future consequences for the party if finally adopted. His argument was that any increase in the size of the Electoral College would further give advantage to the rich and wealthy candidates, thereby engendering corruption.
For him, an expansion of the Electoral College could lead to high cost of running campaigns since candidates will have no choice but run huge advertisements and rallies in all constituencies in order to disseminate their messages to the delegates whilst discussing confidential party matters in the open, stressing that this will provide enough ammunition to their political opponents, especially those in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), to use against them.
Apart from spending heavily on rallies and adverts, he noted that candidates will also have to spend heavily on Chiefs and other dignitaries during this kind of campaign, emphasizing that this cannot be supported by the candidates with small campaign budgets, thereby defeating the very notion that this will help kill ‘moneycracy’ in the game.
Whilst admitting that it might be attractive to increase the size of the Electoral College by increasing the number of delegates from the overseas branches, who are currently entitled to only one delegate per branch, Sammy Awuku argued that these are enlightened and resourceful people who will pay for their trips to and from Ghana at their own expense.
He was thus confident that these are not only discerning people but generally cannot be bribed to change their minds, therefore “fifty (50) delegates per branch would not hurt, looking at the kind of support they give to the party”, he said. He added that other generally enlightened groups could be identified and enfranchised, citing TESCON branches in the various tertiary institutions.
Under the current circumstance, he noted that it will be strategically suicidal to open the party up for further damage, expressing the hope that the Constitutional Review Committee will come up with more innovative ways in expanding the Electoral College, than the idea of all card bearing members being granted voting rights since it has future repercussions.