Ghanaian Journalist Halifax Ansah-Addo

Sunday, 28 November 2010

Health Minister Betrays NHIS

By Halifax Ansah-Addo

dailyguideghana.com

The Health Minister, Dr. Benjamin Kumbuor, has made known his lack of faith in the ability of the Mills-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to run a one-time premium payment for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

The disclosure comes at a time Sylvester Mensah, Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), has confirmed reports that the NHIS stands the danger of folding up as there would be no more funds to run the scheme by the year 2013 if government does not find ways of generating more revenue for it.

Dr. Kumbuor, speaking during his Ministry’s turn at the ‘Meet the Press’ series, said he was compelled to say that the one-time premium was workable because it was a government policy and since he was a part of government, he had to support the issue.

Dr. Kumbuor noted, “It would work…I have raised both hands and legs to show you that it would work and I am saying this because they are playing a drum and I am only dancing to it; when they stop playing the drum and I am still dancing, someone should tap me and say they have stopped playing the drum.”

The Health Minister then explained that despite his original position, government had explained that the amount of money currently being collected as premium constituted a paltry three and a half percent of the NHIS budget, thus its contribution was insignificant.

But DAILY GUIDE can confirm that the health scheme is crumbling and the NHIA, its administrator, has tried in vain to get government to accept the true state of affairs and do something about it.

Sources at the Seat of Government told DAILY GUIDE that on Monday, November 14, the Vice President chaired a Cabinet meeting at the Castle and one of the issues that came up was how to generate additional revenue to sustain the NHIA but the Health Minister appeared rather unconcerned about the subject.

“There were a couple of suggestions on board and what the NHIA suggested was that we raised the NHIS levy from 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent but the sector Minister was not ready to push that proposal so it was not included in the budget and this raised a lot of tempers but every Minister has his Ministry and no one could speak for NHIA when the Health Minister was not the least concerned,” the Castle source noted.

As the situation stands now, the one-time premium payment as promised by the Evans Atta Mills government would remain a mirage as the NHIS itself would have no choice but to fold up by 2013 due to lack of funds.

Before the budget was read, confidential documents sighted by DAILY GUIDE revealed that the NHIA Board of Directors had met over dangers being faced by the scheme, and forwarded to Cabinet a couple of recommendations on how to sustain the facility, with the most plausible suggestion being to increase the 2.5 percent NHIS levies to 3.5 percent from January 2011.

The said Board Member explained further, “As you can see, year by year our expenditure keeps escalating, given that more people subscribe to the scheme and the cost of medication has gone up, but our revenue is not expanding and we cannot sustain the trend…in 2004 we had just about 1.3 million subscribers but currently we are a little over 17 million and we may have to fold up by 2013 unless something is done about the situation.

“We need to take a tough decision to sustain the scheme and as we continue to block leaks in the system and let the law deal with those found to have involved in financial misconduct and our clinical audits have been able to recoup something close to GH¢15 billion that would have gone waste.”

It is not certain whether government deliberately wants to collapse the scheme and blame it on the past administration, or whether the NDC’s own internal wrangling is having an adverse toll on the future of the NHIS.

What is certain is that the 17 million plus Ghanaians registered with the NHIS would have to return to the ‘cash and carry’ era by the year 2013 because the NDC government would have no funds to run the scheme.

SCIZO Hits Big

A News-One Story (Wed. Oct.20, 2010)

It is true that hip life artiste Scizo does not have albums upon albums to his credit but the fact is he has created a lot of impact on the music scene with the release of the ‘1 Stone’ track, on which he featured Kwabena-Kwabena.
Music lovers have since then been longing for Scizo and watching out for his next big hit. So far, he has partially satisfied his fans with his ‘once in a while stage performances’ as well as the showing of his music videos on MTV Base and Channel O.
Just last week, his music videos got nominated in two categories for the second edition of the 4syte Music Video awards scheduled for November 20 this year.
Scizo, whose real name is Joseph Kwame Sogli, has finally bounced back with the release of ‘Make Me Feel You’, a dancehall track featuring Stone Boy. The song which is raising eyebrows in town is one that would make any Ghanaian proud.
From lyrics, rhythm, tempo, to sound, ‘Make Me Feel You’ is an irresistible dancehall track that promises to be a big hit for Scizo.
The sample album of ‘Make Me Feel You’ has other songs such as ‘Rain Rain’ and ‘I Dey For You’. Interestingly, he has already done the video for both songs and placed them on YouTube.
NEWS-ONE caught up with him for a brief talk and he had this to say:
“You can say it is a Christmas package for Ghanaians and tourists who visit the country. I released this on Faa S33 label and we are planning to do put up a show at the Alliance Française by November before I do a mini tour with the tracks.
“In life you can only do what God permits you and I have learnt to do one thing at a time and rely mostly on God. I have done the tracks and the videos now hoping that by March next year, the full album would be out for my fans,” Scizo disclosed.
NEWS-ONE delved a bit into the life of Scizo (pronounced as si-zo) and discovered he is not married, still single and holds strong Christian principles. He writes his own lyrics and flows well in English, Ga, Ewe and Asanti-Twi.
He had his basic education at St. Paul’s School at La before moving to St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School. He also took a couple of professional courses and is currently taking lessons in sound engineering.

Youth Council Rejects ‘Gay Boy’

By Halifax Ansah-Addo
Daily Guide of Monday, 20 September 2010

The management of the National Youth Council (NYC) says it cannot continue to tolerate the unruly behavior of Prince-Derrick Adjei, the alleged gay appointed by President Atta Mills as the deputy Co-ordinator of the National Youth Council.

The council has complained that “Prince-Derrick Adjei has undermined a professional culture that has evolved out of over thirty-five years of youth professional work to the detriment and disappointment of hardworking, dedicated workers and staff who have seen the National Youth Council through thick and thin to this day.”

The NYC’s declaration of no-confidence in Mr. Adjei comes at a time Civil Society and some members of Parliament have called for his immediate removal from office, following his continuous insulting nature, irresponsible statements and bad example to the youth he is supposed to lead.

The President has snubbed all the concerns raised and rather continued to reward the man.

The NYC, in a news statement released last Friday and signed by Sarah Obeng, said “comments and behavior of Prince-Derrick Adjei put the image and credibility of the council into public scrutiny as to what values and principles underline the mandate of the Youth Council.

“In distancing itself from Prince-Derrick Adjei’s effusions, management views his demeanor uncharacteristic of a professional youth development worker because before his appointment into the National Youth Council, staff had maintained for themselves a high sense of professional ethics and chalked professional integrity among youth development practitioners globally.”

It continued: “Management will want to assure the public, especially those who have been hurt by Prince-Derrick Adjei’s outburst, that the National Youth Council will not countenance such unruly behavior in its fold.”

According to the statement, Prince-Derrick Adjei has not behaved like the deputy National Co-ordinator of a “statutory youth development agency charged with the onerous responsibility to nurture the empowerment of the Ghanaian youth for honesty and integrity, self reliance and leadership, respect for authority and recognition of positive cultural values for excellence and humility, patriotism, and productive citizenship.”

Adjei has recently gained notoriety for talking loose and making wild allegations that cannot be substantiated.

In his response to an allegation that he is ‘a notorious homosexual’ who frequents bars and nightclubs of Accra, fishing for men to initiate into homosexuality, he lashed out, wildly claiming he knew several homosexuals, bisexuals and pedophiles even in Parliament and that he would publish their names last Wednesday September 15, 2010.

Derrick, on Wednesday, did not produce his list of gay MPs but rather levelled homosexual allegations against a number of journalists and political activists who took him on and dared him to produce his list of gay MPs.

ALARM BLOW Over Ministers’ ‘Chop Chop’

By Halifax Ansah-Addo
Daily Guide of Sept. 28, 2010

Reports reaching DAILY GUIDE indicate that the Information Ministry has suddenly become an avenue for siphoning public funds into pockets of appointees of the Mills administration, with the Minister, John Tia Akologo, being fingered as one of the appointees.
John Tia, who recently jumped to the defence of Stanislav Xoese Dogbe, a Presidential Aide over the GH¢169,000.00 hampers’ scandal even though he was not the Minister at the time when the money was spent, is said to be plundering the account of the ministry with his unrestrained profligacy.
Sources at the Ministry of Information have hinted that President Atta Mills caused the dismissal of Nee Agiri Barnor also known as Mije Barnor as Acting Director of the Information Services Department (ISD), mainly on suspicion that he was a whistle-blower who would not justify corruption by calling it an ‘indiscretion’.
The President’s aim is to ostensibly conceal corruption at the Ministry including the GH¢169,000.00 hampers’ scandal, sources swore to DAILY GUIDE over the weekend.
Days after government sacked Nee Agiri, workers within the ISD have told the media there was collective looting of the taxpayer’s money by the Information Minister, John Tia and his two deputies.
Yesterday, a group within the ISD accused Mr. Tia and his two deputies, Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa and James Agyenim Boateng of unbridled corruption.
The ISD workers, in a press statement, alleged that John Tia picks between GH¢2,000 and GH¢5,000 Ghana cedis from the coffers of the Ministry anytime he travelled outside Accra, according to a Citi FM report.
The group referred to the Minister and his deputies as “greedy, corrupt and selfish”, and alleged that funds meant for the ISD had been deliberately locked up in the Ministry’s coffers.
It claimed only GH¢45,000 of a budget of GH¢340,000 allocated to the ISD was released in 2009.
The concerned staff also alleged that a budget of GH¢145,000 released for public education on the H1N1 influenza was diverted.
They claimed Mije Barnor was sacked because of fears that the widespread corruption at the Ministry could be exposed after Mr. Dogbe was caught pants down with the ¢1.6 billion he was said to have spent on buying hampers for journalists.
John Tia has however denied the allegations and asked his accusers to provide evidence of the alleged corruption.
He told Citi FM yesterday that it was rather the sacked ISD boss who wanted to corrupt him.
However, the Information Minister said he failed to report the matter to the police, but warned him not to try it again.
According to John Tia, since it was a mere intention, he did not find it necessary to report to the police, but rather asked Nee Agiri to go home and sin no more.
Sources from the ISD have told DAILY GUIDE that Agiri Barnor was overly principled on instilling accountability and productivity and was therefore seen as a thorn in the flesh of some bad nuts in the Ministry. This paper was reliably informed that a plush party was thrown to celebrate his dismissal in the home of one of the stooges ‘used’ to plot his dismissal.
The sources said barely 24 hours after his announced expulsion, his official vehicle and office were taken over by a retired officer who was one of the ‘coup makers’.
President Mills’s golden boy - Stanislav Dogbe - cannot account for a cash of GH¢169,000.00 (¢1.69 billion) he admits to have personally received from the Principal Accountant of the Ministry of Information on December 21st, 2009 (three days to Christmas) to “enable me to carry out public education on the 2010 annual budget.” The budget had been read on November 18, 2009, over a month by the Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor.
This is the third time within a period of two years that the President Mills has publicly victimized public servants suspected either rightly or wrongly to have raised an alarm over government appointees involved in alleged corrupt practices and cannot account for the taxpayer’s money.
Our sources at the Presidency say Tourism Minister Zita Okaikoi has become the target of the powers that be at the seat of government, after she refused to defend Mr. Dogbe on several radio stations, though she was the Minister for Information when the said money was signed for and collected in a ‘Ghana Must Go’ travelling bag.
It would be recalled that the Mills Government caused the interdiction of a former Chief Director of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Albert Anthony Ampong and Adim Odoom, a Principal Accountant of the same Ministry, after they exposed alleged corrupt practices by the then Sports Minister, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak.
After DAILY GUIDE broke the story that Mr. Dogbe had collected the cash of GH¢169,000 meant to educate the public on the national budget but used an undisclosed part of the money to buy Christmas hampers for some unnamed journalists, a number of pro-government media houses accused Agiri Barnor of being the source of the story.
Interestingly, President Mills was quick to sack Mr. Barnor but he is still rewarding Mr. Dogbe by keeping him as a special aide, though the latter has fumbled in explaining what he used the money for, prompting widespread calls for his dismissal.
A clear instance was when Mr. Dogbe claimed he had given part of the GH¢169,000 cash to the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ), only for the association’s president, Lloyd Evans to openly come out that his association had never received any money from Mr. Dogbe for any reason at any given period.

CPP Bosses Sacked

By Hakifax Ansah-Addo
Monday August 16, 2010

TWO ELECTED National Executive officers of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) have been sacked from the party over statements they made that were rather embarrassing to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in respect of the Kosmos Energy and the STX Korea Housing deal.

The CPP has accordingly issued a categorical statement that party’s General Secretary Ivor Greenstreet and its National Youth Organizer, Kwabena Bomfeh, have been deposed and they “cease with immediate effect to act as Secretary General and Youth organizer respectively.”

The dismissal letter was signed by the party’s first national vice chairman, Dr. Abu Sakara, after the party’s central committee held an emergency meeting last Thursday over the two national officers.

According to the statement, Greenstreet and Bomfeh had also been referred to the party’s disciplinary committee to answer charges of conducts that were deemed to have brought the image of the party into disrepute contrary to Article 77 (a) (ii) of the CPP’s constitution.

It added that pending the outcome of the disciplinary committee, the CPP would have nothing to do with the two elected national officers.

The statement noted that “the central committee wishes to assert the authority vested in the chairman of the party as the ultimate spokesperson and representative of the party superseding all other members in all matters.

“It also cautions all CPP party members that the central committee will not countenance any challenge to the authority of the chairman and leadership outside of laid down internal procedures of discussion and debate in appropriate forum within the party.”

Meanwhile, party Chairman Ladi Nylander, on August 2, 2010, issued a similar press statement regarding Greenstreet and Bomfeh, warning the two that “the party would not tolerate the use of its name to champion personal interests that are not consistent with nor officially approved as party position.”

Nylander, in his statement, said: “the two have recently made statements or taken actions that have been carried in the media as official positions and actions of the party.

“CPP wishes to state most categorically that the statements and actions of the two members of our executive relating to the STX matter and Kosmos Energy are their personal positions and do not in any way represent officially approved positions of the Party.

“The Convention People’s Party (CPP) wishes to distance itself vigorously from recent personal actions by General Secretary Ivor Greenstreet and National Youth Organizer Kwabena Bomfeh,” Nylander noted.

The two sacked officers, who have recently been critical of government over the manner it handled the $1.5bilion STX housing deal, could not be reached for their comments as at press time.

Employment Minister Hot

By Halifax Ansah-Addo
Friday, 20 August 2010

The Minister for Employment and Social Welfare, Enock Teye Mensah, has been accused of plotting to ‘shit-bomb’ members of the Civil and Local Government Staff Association (CLOSAG) because he suspects they are being sponsored by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

So angry were the leadership of CLOSAG that they called on their members to embark on daily nationwide demonstrations from Tuesday August 24 to Friday August 27.

“We have been told by the very persons he is plotting with and we are not surprised because that is his stock-in-trade. We are ready for him and as we said in the press statement, we have bought disinfectants like Detol and ‘akeshaa’ to clean up the place.

He cannot scare us with his shit-bomb tactics,” the leadership of CLOSAG told DAILY GUIDE just after they had addressed a press conference in Accra.

The CLOSAG leaders appeared very agitated as some of them overlooked the presence of journalists and rained insults on the gray-haired minister.

The insults were simply unprintable and the actual meanings would be best appreciated in the Ga language which was mostly used.

They had red bands around their heads and wrists as some of them shouted and threw angry fists skyward.

“For now what we would advise the Minister [E.T. Mensah] to do before we call on the President for his removal is, he should undertake courses in Labour-related issues starting from the Ghana Labour College and further it at the University of Cape Coast if he so wishes, for him to update his skills in modern trends in Labour Relations.

This would enable him to build his capacity to administer his office on labour matters and to appropriately advise the President on good governance,” Edward Tennyson Foli, Acting President of the association noted.

CLOSAG told the media that they were angry because E.T. Mensah had described them as a pack of “retired, old-fashioned and blockheaded officers” belonging to an association that “was formed with funding from the New Patriotic Party”.

They alleged that E.T. Mensah had also noted that “the recent nationwide demonstrations by CLOSAG members were undertaken by supporters of the NPP and that the demonstrators were not civil servants”.

According to the association’s Acting President, “CLOSAG is not surprised at his comments because that is the attitude, posture and body language of someone who is fatigued in governance, tracing his background in politics to as far as PNDC era to date. Who looks more old-fashioned and tired of the system?”

E.T. Mensah did not appear perturbed about the development when DAILY GUIDE sought his views in a telephone interview yesterday.

“What they are saying is nothing but a pack of lies against me and because this matter is before the Labour Commission, I do not want to comment on it or glorify them with a response because there is work for me to do.

“All I would say is that I would not be distracted and I want to remain focused. Are they saying they are happy with themselves that out of 103 associations, 102 are working with us except them?

Look, the train has taken off and they better join rather than try to bring government to its knees,” Mr. Mensah said.

CLOSAG in their statement responded to what they alleged Mr. Mensah had said about them. “…That CLOSAG was formed with funding from the NPP is an unfortunate statement coming from a high profile and elderly personality of government who ought to have known the history of Labour Unions and Associations in the country that are currently related to his ministry.

“The Minister is being haunted by his past practices. How on earth could an Association, very conversant with the needs of its members, go bussing party sympathizers to demonstrate?

…It would mean all demonstrations, for example, the recent one by the ICU on utility tariff hikes, was also politically motivated.”

Zita Flies To USA For Baby

By Halifax Ansah-Adddo
(Daily Guide Friday, 04 June 2010)

Ghana’s Tourism Minister, Zita Sabah Okaikoi, is residing with her maid-servant and bodyguard in a government of Ghana facility while on a private visit to New York to seek maternal care, information reaching DAILY GUIDE from the United States indicates.

Reports say the pregnant Minister and the two are cooling off on the 14th floor of 19 East 47th Street New York, NY 10017, a residential facility at the New York Consulate of the Ghana Mission in the United States.

The facility, DAILY GUIDE learnt, is exclusively reserved for Ghanaian officials on official working trips to the US, and is not to be used by persons on private visits.

The female Minister, together with her bodyguard and servant, are incurring extra cost for the Ghana Mission at a time a number of workers there have not been paid for months.

Apart from staying at the residential facility at the Consulate, reports say Zita and her private maid are chauffeur-driven in government of Ghana vehicles on their private rounds.

The vehicles are fueled and maintained by the Ghanaian tax payer, sources say.

Amazingly, all telephone numbers to the office of the consulate went unanswered and were directed to voice mails when DAILY GUIDE called.

Zita herself could also not be reached on phone and when DAILY GUIDE asked Deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, what the Tourism Minister was doing outside the country, he seemed not to be in the know and suggested that Zita herself speaks to the issue.

Foreign Minister Alhaji Mohammad Mumuni could also not be reached on phone and two text messages sent to his phone for a reaction were not answered.

The 15-floor consulate was purchased for Ghana by ex-head of state General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.

A source who spoke on anonymity explained: “The building is very big and there are some parts that are scarcely used.

It was restructured and rebuilt into two residential facilities by the Kufuor government and the minister is staying with her house-girl in one of them.”

When news broke in Ghana that Zita had travelled outside the country, ostensibly to seek maternal care, she had a lot of public bashing from persons who expressed surprise that a Minister for Tourism under the Mills administration did not find any hospital in Ghana worthy of her status, but had to travel to US just for maternal care.