Ghana: Press spotlights EC’s assurance of capturing every eligible voter, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report of the assurance of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, that no eligible Ghanaian, who is desirous of registering to vote in the 2024 general election will be disenfranchised is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, has given a firm assurance that no eligible Ghanaian who is desirous of registering to vote in the 2024 general election will be disenfranchised.
She said the commission had put in place the needed measures to ensure that all qualified persons were captured in the poll book.
“We have heard allegations from various quarters that the commission is seeking to disenfranchise eligible voters.
This is false; we have no interest in disenfranchising any eligible person,” Mrs Mensa stressed.
The EC Chairperson told the Daily Graphic that the commission would roll out a continuous registration exercise across the country next year to ensure that all qualified persons were registered.
The EC started a limited voter registration exercise on September 12, seeking to register persons who have turned 18 years after the previous registration exercise.
The 21-day exercise is also an opportunity for persons who have not previously registered with the commission to have their names captured on the voters’ roll.
A section of the public and some political parties raised concerns that the EC was deliberately trying to prevent some eligible persons from participating in the registration exercise.
The newspaper says that the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL) has hit another trailblazing milestone in the media industry with the launch of its digitalised archives that contain national records and information spanning over 70 years.
The Graphic Digitalised Archives is a reservoir of scanned newspapers and pictures captured by the Daily Graphic and other brands of the GCGL since 1950.
Among other things, the platform chronicles all events ranging from politics, the economy, health, education, arts and entertainment, sports and other aspects of the country’s culture in both text and pictures.
The historic initiative allows people to access information by typing a keyword such as a name, date, event or location to readily obtain any material related to the keyword.
It is further designed with an electronic payment feature that allows people to pay using e-payment platforms and credit cards to access the content.
The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who launched the Graphic Digitalised Archives in Accra last Wednesday, congratulated the GCGL on the bold step it had taken to deploy the innovative project.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said he was particularly enthused about the initiative because GCGL had proved that in the digital era when businesses needed to either innovate or die, state institutions could rise to the challenge with the right innovation.
“When I visited GCGL archives in May this year, I was blown away by how the papers were being preserved.
What even blew me the more was the kind of indexing behind the innovation such that you can search for dates and events for specific information,” he said.
The minister said the Graphic Digitalised Archives was revolutionary as it presented an opportunity for academic institutions, the media, brand managers and other entities to access reliable and accessible records.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Convention People’s Party (CPP) has urged the citizenry to reflect on the developmental agenda of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and use his records as basis to hold the government to account.
The party said Dr Nkrumah’s strategic investments in critical sectors of the economy and industrialisation drive put the country on the path of economic independence until his “painful” overthrow in 1966.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) ahead of the commemoration of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day on Thursday, Nana Yaa Akyempim Jantuah, the General Secretary of the CPP, said Dr Nkrumah should be the “yardstick of good governance.”
She urged the citizenry to reflect on the current state of Ghana’s economy and juxtapose it with the achievements of Dr Nkrumah, who made a determined effort to make the country a great nation after gaining her independence in 1957.
“Ghana was on the road of gaining economic independence, but Nkrumah was painfully taken out of power.
“Kwame Nkrumah developed and industrialised this nation. He created a good healthcare system for the nation and was very prudent with the resources that we had and used it to build a lot of infrastructure, including the Akosombo Dam and the harbour,” she said.
Nana Yaa Jantuah said the present state of the Ghanaian economy, which was characterised by higher inflation, weak local currency, and unattainable debts, reflected the extent to which the dream to achieve total economic independence had fallen apart.
“It is time for us to arise to make our government accountable. Ghanaians should let governments who come into power understand that they cannot do what they like, and that the yardstick should be what Kwame Nkrumah did,” she said.
Ghanaians yesterday, September 21, 2023, marked the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day, with a statutory public holiday.
The day is set aside to remember and honour Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, who earlier was Prime Minister and Africa’s foremost champion of continental unity and liberation of the black race.
On March 6, 1957, Ghana gained independence after 83 years of British colonial rule – becoming the first sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence from Britain.
The newspaper says that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Africa’s Global Bank, in spite of the difficult macroeconomic challenges in the region delivered strong performance for the first half of 2023.
The results released to the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Tuesday showed that the Group recorded double and triple-digit growth across its major income lines, as it continues to show substantial progress in increasing the contribution and market share from its subsidiaries in Africa and globally, the bank in a statement copied to the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday said.
At the end of the first half of the year, the statement said UBA
Group reported a profit before tax of $829.7 million, representing an increase of 371 per cent, compared with $204.5 million recorded in the first half of 2022.
The statement said the bank recorded a profit after tax of $776.79 million, representing a leap of 437.8 per cent over the figure recorded in the same period last year.
“Operating Income grew by 206.6 per cent to $1.61 billion in June 2023; higher than $609.9 million reported a year earlier,” it said.
“Total Assets continued a strong upward trajectory, rising above the $19.8bn mark as it hits $20.3 billion, representing a 41.7 per cent leap up from $14.4 billion recorded at the end of last year,” the statement said.
Customer Deposits also rose by a sharp 42.4 per cent to $14.7 billion in the period under consideration; as against $16.9 billion recorded at the end of 2022.
The Board has approved an interim dividend of 0.07cent per share, which represents over 150 per cent increase over the prior year.
GIK/APA