The grant agreement with four Japanese assemblies to provide basic social infrastructure for some villages in the districts and municipalities and President Akufo-Addo’ condolences” to the families of the 12 teenagers who lost their lives last Sunday while swimming in the sea in Apam in the Gomoa West District in the Central Region are some of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday. .
The Graphic reports that Japanese Embassy in Ghana yesterday signed a grant agreement with four assemblies to provide basic social infrastructure for some villages in the districts and municipalities.
Projects earmarked under the agreement are Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds and a girls’ model school.
The GH¢1.95 million or $333,881 worth of projects will benefit more than 40,000 people in the communities.
The beneficiary communities are Abrem Berase in the Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem (KEEA) municipality, Babatokuma in the Kintampo municipality, Bolni in the Nanumba North municipality and Masawose in the Chereponi District.
The Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Himeno Tsutomu, signed the document on behalf of Japan, while the Head of the Local Government Service, Dr Nana Ato Arthur, signed on behalf of the KEEA Assembly, with Mr Thaddeus Zaasan, the Municipal Coordinating Director of the Kintampo Assembly, endorsing the document on behalf of the assembly.
Mr. Tsutomu said the grant was an indication of the strong friendly relations and partnership between Japan and Ghana.
“It is the wish of the people and the government of Japan that these projects would make valuable contributions in the areas of health, education and human security,” he said.
The newspaper says that on March 11 2020, the World Health Organization declared that the COVID-19 public health emergency had become a pandemic: 114 countries were affected, there were 121,500 confirmed cases and more than 4,000 people had succumbed to the virus.
One year on, we have now seen 115 million confirmed cases globally and more than 2.5 million deaths from COVID-19.
“Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly,” said the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on that day in 2020. But in the year since that announcement, the fates of many countries have depended on how leaders have chosen their words.
The impact of the pandemic was unprecedented and all governments faced challenges dealing with a severe but highly unpredictable threat to the lives of their citizens. And some governments responded better than others.
My colleagues and I recently carried out a comparative study of how 27 countries responded to the emergence of the virus and first wave, and how they communicated that response to their citizens.
The Graphic also reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed his “deepest condolences” to the families of the 12 teenagers who lost their lives last Sunday while swimming in the sea in Apam in the Gomoa West District in the Central Region.
He said the sad event, which caught the attention of the entire nation, had been a great source of worry and trying moment for the affected families and all Ghanaians.
The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Mrs Mavis Hawa Koomson, who led a delegation yesterday to convey the President’s condolences to the bereaved families and the people of Apam, said: “President Akufo-Addo is deeply worried and concerned about the tragic event which happened a day after the nation celebrated its 64th Independence Day anniversary”.
The minister was accompanied by the Minister designate for the Central Region, Mrs Justina Marigold Assan; the Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Habiba Yaa Akyere Twumasi-Sarpong; the Regional Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Richard Takyi Mensah, among other dignitaries.
The minister, on behalf of President Akufo-Addo, presented GH¢36,120 to defray the cost for the performance of traditional rites, autopsy, burial and funeral of the victims.
Out of the amount, GH¢20,000 went to the bereaved families, while GH¢10,000 was presented to the chiefs and elders towards the traditional rites relating to the burial of the 12 departed youngsters.
Additionally, Mrs Koomson, who is also the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East, personally presented GH¢10,000 each to Godfred Apratse,14, and Simon Dadzie,15, who survived the tragic incident last Sunday.
The Times says that the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) has revealed that the government lost GH₵1.9billion to tax evasion in 2019, Mr. Senyo Hosi, the CEO of CBOD has disclosed.
The Chamber blames the losses on a compromised Petroleum Product Marking Scheme (PPMS).
According to myjoyonlinecom, Mr. Hosi, who made the revelation at the virtual launch of the 2019 Ghana Petroleum Industry Report in Accra, said the PPMS which was established in 2012 by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to respond to the growing occurrences of petroleum smuggling, dumping of untaxed products and adulteration of petroleum products was possibly compromised at the depots.
He noted that perpetrators of these illegal activities who often distribute their products through the traditional channels like retail outlets and bulk consumer points led to major losses in government revenue and compromised the quality of products, further leading to damage to vehicle engines and breaches of environmental and health standards.
Mr. Hosi added that the unmarked petroleum products that found their way to the pumps were often diluted and or adulterated.
According to him, some retail outlets during field visit were assessed and scored as Pass, Suspect, Suspect Dot or Fail.
“Those marked as failed means there was a clear dilution and or adulteration of the sample. In the commencement of phase two of PPMS in 2019 with the new MSX 2000 device unlike the LSX 2000 used in phase one, the average retail outlet failure rate was 1.99 percent, a 0.64 percent increase of that recorded in 2018,” he said.
GIK/APA