The pledge by President Akufo-Addo to support the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) and the review of the structure of the Ghana Education Service (GES) are some of the trending stories in Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured the management of the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) of the government’s support for the company to ensure that the processes and measures the company has instituted to turn around its fortunes are successful.
The President said although the CPC inherited a debt of over $100 million in 2017, he was impressed by the measures already put in place to increase production, cut cost and improve the viability of the company to play a critical role in the government’s policy of value addition and industrialisation.
He gave the assurance when he paid a working visit to the company in Tema yesterday to, as he put it, “listen to their challenges and what, therefore, can be done”.
“I’m really encouraged by the reports I’ve been receiving consistently of the big efforts, the courageous efforts you’re making to confront the past and yet build a successful future,” he said.
The visit was also to help Ghana’s quest to ensure that, together with Cote d’Ivoire as the two main producers of cocoa in the world, it could increase its share of benefits from the product.
The newspaper says that Ghana Education Service (GES) is reviewing its structure to make the service more efficient and effective in the delivery of its mandate of providing quality, equitable and inclusive education for the Ghanaian child.
The report noted that the reforms seek to look at the entire structure and spectrum of the service and restructure systems, as well as job functions, with a focus to improve and better manage them.
Addressing a workshop on the Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP) at Larteh in the Eastern Region, the Deputy Director-General of the GES in charge of Management Services, Mr. Anthony Boateng, said one of the areas being considered was the number of people working at the GES Headquarters.
“Some people are of the view that the headquarters of the GES should be made of only highly technical people who will be engaged in policy dissemination, coordination, harmonisation and monitoring to ensure that things are working,” he said.
Mr Boateng indicated that no employee would lose his/her job and urged staff of the service not to panic, stressing: “At worst, there may be realignments.”
Currently, the GES has a staff strength of about 350,000 and a student population of about nine million.
The Graphic also reports that the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama says the new Births and Deaths Registration Act which has been passed by Parliament will help improve collation of vital information for national development.
At a Meet the Press engagement Wednesday, August 26, 2020, Hajia Alima Mahama said in 2019, the Registry registered 707,064 infant births (359,532 males and 347,532 females) out of a targeted 879,483 representing 80.40%.
On deaths, the minister said the Registry registered 51,159 deaths (27,480 males and 23,679 females) out of 309,955 as its target representing 17%.
“The new Births and Deaths Registration Act, 2020, seeks to integrate the registration system into the local administration setup. MMDAs will be responsible for the provision of registration facilities at the district level. This will ensure the decentralization of the registration machinery and make registration of vital events accessible to the populace with pronounced functionality at the community level (urban, zonal and town councils”.
The minister said under this protocol, there will be a digital interface between the Births and Deaths Registry and institutions like the National Identification Authority (NIA), the National Health Insurance Agency (NHIA), The Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
The Times reports that the Narcotic Control Commission (NCC) has emphasised that it is still illegal to cultivate cannabis in the country without a licence, despite the passage of the Narcotic Control Act (1019), this year, in relation to medicinal and industrial use of the plant.
Mr. Francis Opoku Amoah, Head of Communication and Media Relations at NCC said this in an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday in Accra.
This followed the destruction of about 67 acres of the plant in Boso in the Eastern Region by a team of security personnel last week upon a tip-off.
He made it clear that, Section 39 of the Act specified that: “A person shall not without lawful authority proof cannot own, cultivate, grow or harvest a plant that can be consumed as a narcotic drug or plant, or from which a narcotic can be extracted or processed.”
Mr. Amoah said the perception that cannabis has been legalised in the country fell within Section 43 of the Act which made special provision to the cultivation of cannabis in the country by specifying that, an active ingredient known as THC, which causes mental delusions in the usage of the plant, should be less than 0.3 percent during cultivation, before it could be used for industrial and medicinal purposes.
GIK/APA