ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
Is it reasonable to the World Bank that a government should take a loan, even if at concessionary re-payment rate, to finance recurrent expenditures such as the purchase of sandals, pencils and sanitary pads for a very limited number of senior high students over a limited period of 3 years?
Is the Bank satisfied with the sustainability consideration of this project?
Is it satisfied with the use of substantial portions of the facility for setting up parallel institutions for the purpose of this programme?
We urge the World Bank to re-look at this project and bring good governance considerations to bear.
This is important for the Bank's credibility.
IN CONCLUSION This project, as it stands, is bad.
We believe that an important initiative to improve senior high education is being contaminated by the greed and illegitimate interests of people in government.
For the sake of the national interest, this must be stopped.
Good morning, our friends from the media.
The NDC Minority in Parliament is pleased to welcome you to this very urgent press engagement.
We are quite sure many of you followed and reported on events in the Chamber last night, which showcased our opposition to an attempt by the Jean Mensah-led Electoral Commission to introduce a Constitutional Instrument before Parliament.
The said C.I, the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Instrument, 2022 , seeks to make the Ghana Card the sole document for the registration of voters onto Ghana’s electoral roll.
Many of you may not be aware of the reasons for our opposition to this proposed C.I.
It is against this backdrop that we have assembled you here in what we consider as a national emergency, to state our reasons for our stated opposition to the proposed C.I.
The Ghana Card and Registration of Voters Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution guarantees the right to vote by stating that: “Every citizen of Ghana of eighteen years or above and of sound mind has the right to vote and is entitled to be registered as a voter for the purposes of public elections and referenda.”
Distinguished friends from the media, what the Electoral Commission’s proposed C.I seeks to do however is to restrict the realization of this right of Ghanaians, as Regulation 1 (3) of the proposed C.I states: “A person who applies for registration as a voter shall provide as evidence of identification the National Identification Card issued by the National Identification Authority”.
What Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution requires, is evidence of citizenship and not evidence or proof of identification.
Any evidence of citizenship should therefore qualify a person to be registered.
That is why under the current C.I 91 as amended by C.I 126, Ghanaian Passports and guarantor system are allowed as evidence of citizenship.
Clearly, the proposed C.I which makes the Ghana Card the sole requirement for voter registration serves as a restraint on citizen’s right to register and exercise their franchise in elections.
It is important to remind the Electoral Commission headed by Madam Jean Mensah that the Commission is enjoined by the constitution to advance the right to vote and not introduce any law that seeks to curtail same.
Indeed, under Article 45(e) of the Constitution, the Electoral Commission is to “undertake programmes for the expansion of the registration of voters” .
Instead, the EC rather seeks to undertake a programme for the restriction of the registration of voters.
Ladies and gentlemen, the National Identification Authority (NIA), which is responsible for the issuance of the Ghana Card has admitted that there is a backlog of millions of Ghanaians who are yet to be issued the Ghana Card.
The NIA has admitted that about 3.5 million Cards have been locked up in bonded warehouses due to its indebtedness of about GHS 1.5 billion ($117m) to the private partner of the NIA, which has contracted loans from banks to undertake the printing of these cards.
Speaking on Newsfile on Joy FM last Saturday, 25 th February, 2023, the Executive Director of the NIA, Prof.
Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah said: “Since about August of last year, we have experienced financial constraints in the system and it created a situation where even though we have 3.5 million stock of cards in a bonded warehouse, we are unable to access the cards because of financial difficulty”.
He proceeded to say that: “currently, about 2.5 million cards are yet to be printed”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, these are not the words of the Minority.
It is also a fact, that the registration process for the Ghana Card has been characterized by several difficulties, including logistical constraints.
The National Identification authority has further admitted that the issuance of the Ghana Card is a continuing process and therefore cannot be completed at any point in time.
Therefore, making the Ghana Card the sole requirement for voter registration cannot be accepted as it will deny millions of Ghanaians their right to register and vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission herself, Mrs.
Jean Mensa, in the Daily Graphic of Tuesday, September 13, 2022, front page, is reported to have admonished the National Identification Authority (NIA) to “make Ghana Card acquisition process faster”, This is a clear admission that there are problems with the issuance of the Ghana Card which the Electoral Commission wants to use as the sole proof of citizenship.
As we speak, millions of eligible Ghanaian voters do not have the Ghana Card and therefore stand the risk of being completely disenfranchised.
This group of Ghanaians can be placed into three (3) groups: There are those who have registered for the Ghana Card but have not been issued with cards.
The number of people in this category stands at a staggering Six hundred and Forty-Five thousand, Six hundred and sixty-three (645, 663).
There are those who registered for the Ghana Card, but have unfortunately misplaced their cards and proceeded to do another registration, which registrations are on hold.
This category of people accounts for thousands of Ghanaians as well.
Thirdly, there are a huge 2.5 million Ghanaians who have not been able to register for the Ghana Card at all.
Any attempt by the Electoral Commission to insist on the Ghana Card as the sole identity document for the registration of voters will therefore deprive the vast majority of our people of their constitutional right to register and vote.
The Guarantor System The proposed C.I seeks to completely eliminate the use of the Guarantor System for the purpose of proving one’s eligibility to be captured onto the voters register.
This proposition we reckon, is a deliberate plot to deprive millions of Ghanaians the opportunity to register and have their names on the electoral roll.
For emphasis, the Electoral Commission was pushed to provide evidence to back the claim of so-called abuse of the guarantor system, the EC indicated that in the 2019 voter registration for instance, only 15,474 people, representing just 0.09% of the total of 17,029,981 registered voters, were challenged on the basis of the guarantor system.
This statistic is a very insignificant and immaterial percentage to warrant a total abrogation of the guarantor system, particularly at a time many do not have the Ghana Card.
We say this because the National Identity Register Regulations 2012 (LI 2111), make room for the guarantor system when it comes to acquiring a Ghana Card.
It is therefore unclear to us what mischief the EC is seeking to cure by relying solely on the Ghana Card as source document for the registration of voters, yet intends to completely outlaw the guarantor system which constituted about 40% of Ghana Card registrations.
We hold the view that the time-tested guarantor system must be maintained in our voter registration process and this position is absolutely non-negotiable.
Common sense should tell any objective mind that a source document for the Ghana Card must be a source document for the Voter ID Card and vice versa.
EC District Offices As Registration Centres Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, the proposed C.I provides that: The Commission shall designate the District Office and any place it considers appropriate as a registration centre.
It is the view of the Minority that the above provisions of the proposed C.I on registration centres will create a number of avoidable problems for the electorate.
First, these provisions if allowed to be implemented, will make voter registration extremely difficult for citizens whose residence are miles away from the District Offices.
In such situations, the cost of travel alone can be a disincentive to registration.
In contrast, if the prevailing practice of using the polling stations which are usually located within walking distance of residences of voters is maintained, this problem will not arise at all.
Secondly, registrations undertaken at the District Offices will entail assigning polling stations to the registrants at the point of registration, but the registrant will not know the physical location of his or her polling station at the point of registration.
Given the high levels of illiteracy in the country, this will create utter confusion on Election Day, as such, voters may find it difficult locating their voting centres.
A discretion exercised in practice by the Registration Officers, will undermine the transparency of the age-old practice of publishing the Registration Centres in advance in the Gazette and therefore ensuring that they are known, certain and publicly identifiable.
So-called emergency and temporary registration centres must equally be known and published at least four weeks in advance.
Thirdly, one of the major problems likely to emerge from this provision is the possibility of gerrymandering that can be engineered by Registration Officials.
Registration Supervisors and Regional Directors of the Electoral Commission Under the proposed C.I, there will be a district registration supervisor and a registration centre supervisor.
Both supervisors shall report directly to the Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, making the regional director the only focal point of the registration in the region.
Once again, it is our view that for the purposes of accountability and verifiability, copies of the reports sent to the Regional Director of the Electoral Commission by the supervisors in the district should also be sent to the respective district officers of the Electoral Commission.
The district officers are closer to the registration proceedings in their various districts and under the C.I.
are among the “persons who may give instructions or directives to a registration supervisor and other registration officials.”
Voters Register Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, the proposed C.I states as follows: Each electoral area shall have a Voters Register consisting of a voters register of each polling station in the electoral area.
Each Constituency shall have a Voters Register consisting of voter’s registers of the electoral areas within the constituency.
It is important to note that the Biometric Verification Devices (BVD’s) that are used to identify voters at the various polling stations do not “talk to each other” to indicate who has voted at which polling station.
Therefore, until such a time that the BVD’s are configured to be interactive in this way, the two Registers being used at the Polling Station on Election Day will open the door to two kinds of infractions, namely multiple voting and ballot stuffing.
Repeal of C.I 91 and C.I 126 Friends from the media, claims by the Electoral Commission that the proposed C.I is for only continuous registration is not only misleading but also mischievous.
Regulation 33 in the draft C.I revokes C.I 91 and C.I 126.
Therefore, by operation of law, once this proposed C.I is passed, it will be the only law on voter registration in Ghana.
The Electoral Commission knows that it does not have separate laws for continuous registration and limited registration or mass registration.
Exclusion of the NDC from the C.I Process Friends from the media, between November 2018 and August 2022, the Electoral Commission set up a Sub-Committee of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to discuss a draft C.I on the Registration of Voters.
The Sub-Committee consisted of the Electoral Commission, One (1) member each from the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, and Three (3) members each from political parties without representation in Parliament and civil society organisations.
Initial meetings to which the NDC was invited did not materialise, only for the party to be informed in August 2022 that this proposed C.I was ready for presentation to Parliament.
In other words, the NDC had been completely excluded from the process of preparing the C.I.
The Electoral Commission and National Security As noted in Ghana’s National Security Strategy, one of the main risks to Ghana’s peace and security “is mistrust in the electoral process The suspicion of collusion between the ruling party and the Electoral Commission to rig elections for the ruling party continues to drive the situation towards dispute and potential violence”.
The above admonishing is coming from the National Security in light of the clear and present danger that the Electoral Commission continues to pose to the peace and stability of Ghana through actions such as this proposed Constitutional Instrument.
Conclusion Distinguished friends from the media, the Minority Caucus will in the coming days collaborate with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to hold a major forum on this subject.
This will afford us an opportunity to further explain these issues for the understanding of the Ghanaian populace.
Given the critical nature of the issue at stake, and the potential of this C.I to undermine our democracy and thereby disturb the peace and security of our country The Minority Group will in the coming days be engaging a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including our Development Partners, Faith-based Organizations, Traditional Authorities and Civil Society Organizations to get them to appreciate the issues at stake and the consequences this bodes for Ghana’s democracy and stability.
May God bless our homeland Ghana and protect our democracy from imminent destruction.
The Minority in Parliament is demanding a bi-partisan probe into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of two indigenous banks in Ghana.
Cassiel Ato Forson who is the Minority spokesperson on Finance suspects something untoward may have happened and demanded investigations into it.
For Immediate Release MINORITY STATEMENT ON THE RECEIVERSHIP OF CAPITAL BANK AND UT BANK Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen of the press.
Thank you very much for honoring the invitation at a very short notice We note that the BOG has approved a “purchase and assumption” (P&A) transaction between UT Bank, Capital Bank and GCB.
This can be viewed as a relatively smooth takeover of the banks rather than the earlier speculation of a simple and forced liquidation which would have had a devastating effect on the economy.
The P&A transaction follows other precedent approaches that had been used to deal with difficult banking situations in the country, for example, the setting up of the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Trust (NPART), and the winding down of the Bank for Credit and Commerce (BCC) , Bank for Housing and Construction (BHC) and Merchant Bank.
We also note that during the press conference on the P&A transaction, the Governor of the BOG, assured the nation that the approach has a distinct benefit where customers will suffer no losses.
The acquiring bank (GCB) will increase its market share while the productive financial assets of UT Bank and Capital Bank will be maintained.
We take note the news and urge all depositors and customers of UT Bank and Capital Bank to exercise restraint while we patiently monitor the activities of the acquiring bank (GCB), BOG, and the receivers (PwC).
We strongly urge these three institutions, (BOG, GCB, and PwC), and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) that could assume any ultimate fiscal risks under the Banking laws, to ensure strict adherence to the distinct benefit of the purchase and assumption (P&A) transaction, so that no single depositor losses his or her investment.
Needless to say, should this happen, it will result in an unforeseen burden on taxpayers instead of the original owners of UT and Capital Banks.
Again, we urge BOG to ensure that the acquiring bank (GCB), which is the largest indigenous bank, with both public and private shareholders, is not overburdened unnecessarily with non-performing loans and impaired assets.
We recall that the NDC Government, in recent past years, took a deliberate policy action to pay the TOR debt owed to GCB which helped to restore the Bank’s balance sheet to its current healthy status, and also not to interfere in GCB's operations.
It is our hope that past and future transactions involved in this indirect liquidation will not be clouded in another secrecy, on grounds of “market sensitivity”.
Ladies and gentlemen, it will be recalled that the NDC government introduced a number of structural measures that sought to strengthen the financial sector and to protect depositors.
Notably among them is the Ghana Deposit Protection Act, 2016 (Act 931).
This Act established the Deposit Protection Scheme (Insurance), the Deposit Protection Fund, and Deposit Protection Corporation.
The Act seeks to protect depositors from potential losses resulting from the occurrence of an insured event.
It is also to support the development of a safe, sound, efficient and stable banking system in Ghana.
We urge the BOG to, as a matter of urgency, start implementing the provisions of this Act without further delay.
The NDC government also enacted the Specialized Deposit Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930) to facilitate the development of the financial sector, and provide an appropriate and robust legal framework to deal with emerging risk and vulnerabilities in the banking system.
The Act addresses supervisory and regulatory gaps to enable the Bank of Ghana superintend over financial service providers in the micro-finance industry.
The Act also ensures financial consumer protection, promotion of innovation, and financial inclusion.
CONCLUSION: Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we wish to end with two observations.
First, it is important for BoG to further strengthen its supervisory and monitoring responsibilities.
It is unimaginable to think that these two (2) banks had won several enviable awards at recent high profile ceremonies.
The minority, as a matter of urgency, will be requesting, through the Rt.
Speaker, that the Minister of Finance, and the Governor of Bank of Ghana be invited to brief Parliament about the development and to give assurance that the depositors will suffer no loss.
We also urge Bank of Ghana to conduct an investigation as to what occasioned this development.
Signed Cassiel Ato Forson Ranking Member, Finance Committee of Parliament 15 th August, 2017
The Minority in Parliament has accused Bernard Ahiafor, Chairman of the Appointments Committee and First Deputy Speaker of exhibiting bias and "extreme partisanship" during the vetting of ministerial nominees.
They claim that his actions undermined the objectivity and integrity expected of the process.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, January 15, Dr Gideon Boako, Member of Parliament for Tano North, alleged that the Chairman’s conduct obstructed a diligent and comprehensive vetting exercise.
He expressed concerns that the Chairman's approach appeared to favour certain nominees, potentially compromising the committee’s mandate to ensure accountability and transparency.
The Minority called for fairness and impartiality in the vetting process, emphasising that such practices are essential to uphold the credibility of Parliament.
They urged the Appointments Committee to prioritise professionalism and adhere to its responsibility of thoroughly scrutinising nominees to safeguard the nation’s democratic principles.
Below is the full text
MINORITY IN PARLIAMENT’S STATEMENT ON THE FREQUENT POWER OUTAGES (DUMSOR) UNDER THE AKUFO-ADDO LED GOVERNMENT DELIVERED BY JOHN ABDULAI JINAPOR (RANKING MEMBER, MINES AND ENERGY COMMITTEE) Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen of the press.
We welcome you to this Press Conference by the NDC Caucus in Parliament, and we wish to begin by expressing our gratitude for your continuous support in the professional discharge of your national duties as the fourth estate of the realm.
The NDC Minority Caucus has called for this media engagement due to the recent unreliable supply of power popularly known as Dumsor which appears to be worsening despite several assurances from government officials and managers of the power sector.
Since the beginning of 2021, many parts of the country have consistently been plunged into a state of darkness often without prior notice to the consuming unfortunately, the situation keeps worsening by the day.
While most Ghanaians have been witnessing intermittent power outages, others have been experiencing low current and occasional high voltages leading to damage of their electrical gadgets and valuable assets in some cases.
The impact of yet another Energy crisis can have dire consequences on the already struggling debt ridden, Covid 19 economy under President Akufo-Addo.
Today not only are we witnessing unreliable supply of power, the obnoxious double track system has been exported to the Power sector under this Government.
It should be noted that since the beginning of the year, GRIDCo alone has given six different reasons for the major national outages aside the intermittent localised blackouts, with the most ridiculous reason being attributed to trees falling on high tension transmission lines.
It is important to note that GRIDCO has strict maintenance culture of clearing bushes/shrubs under their lines so, the question is since when did these shrubs grow into trees?
Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, it is obvious there is something more serious happening within Ghana's energy sector beyond the unconvincing excuses and blame game by managers of the sector For instance, a couple days ago, soon after the Minister of Energy, Hon.
Mathew Opoku Prempeh attributed the current power outages to the inability of the Bui Power Authority to generate power, the Chief Executive of Bui Power Authority publicly denied the Ministers claim and proceeded further to make the shocking revelation that the Minister was misled by GRIDCO – outrageous.
More recently, the Union of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) embarked on an industrial action demanding the removal of their Managing Director sighting incompetence, duplicity and a total lack of understanding of the power distribution company's role.
As if that was not enough, the ECG, GRIDCO and the Hon.
Minster has been providing conflicting timelines on when this debilitating power crisis will be resolved.
What is even more disturbing is despite confirmation from GRIDCo a couple of weeks ago that the country will continue to experience these power outages into the foreseeable future for which reason they promised to publish a load management schedule, the anticipated schedule has since been put on hold due to political pressure from the executive.
It is a well-known fact especially among energy sector players that the current outages in the country is due to financial challenges and not because of technical challenges as being claimed by GRIDCo and Government officials.
This is because the transmission lines and transformers are congested due to under investment and lack of regular maintenance arising from the poor financial health of the energy sector SOEs.
Indeed, it will be recalled that in March 2018, the current CEO of GRIDCo cautioned that the Country was likely to experience major power supply challenges ( ), this was after President Akufo-Addo took a populist but uninformed decision to usurp the authority of the PURC by slashing the revenue flows of GRIDCo and other utility agencies.
Unfortunately, this caution fell on deaf ears.
It is therefore not surprising that electricity consumers (Ghanaians) find themselves in this difficult but avoidable situation of Dumsor.