The view expressed by the former Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, that vigilantism remains an existential threat to Ghana’s democracy is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Graphic reports that a former Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, has observed that vigilantism remains an existential threat to Ghana’s democracy.
According to him, although the National Peace Council and other actors have taken commendable steps towards dealing with vigilantism through the passage of the Vigilante Act, more needs to be done to achieve the desired impact.
Dr Chambas was speaking at the opening of a three-day National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on countering Post-2020 Election Violence and Building Consensus for Greater Political Tolerance in Ghana held at Ada last Tuesday.
The dialogue was organised by the National Peace Council with support from the Commonwealth Secretariat and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Dr Chambas said to achieve the needed impact, the Vigilante Act had to be implemented to deal with persons who might want to engage in electoral disputes.
He said electoral disputes, like all other disputes, were a natural occurrence, as such it was also essential that a timely dispute resolution mechanism existed to deal with such disputes.
“Where stakeholders are confident that their grievances will be heard with a fair resolution, the likelihood of turning to violence will be reduced,” he said.
The newspaper says that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has directed the Minister for the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, to, with immediate effect, set up a public inquiry into the shootings at Ejura in the Ashanti Region that left two persons dead and four others injured.
According to the directive, the minister will also provide a detailed report of the inquiry, with recommendations for appropriate action, within 10 days (July 9, 2021) to the President.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Director of Communications, Office of the President, Mr Eugene Arhin, and issued in Accra Tuesday.
According to the statement, the President was deeply saddened by the death of Ibrahim Mohammed, alias Macho Kaaka, Abdul Nasir Yussif and Murtala Mohammed.
It extended the President’s sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and wished the injured speedy recovery.
Protests erupted at Ejura over the death of Kaaka, a social media activist, at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi where he was receiving treatment, following an alleged attack on him by some unidentified persons last Monday.
Macho Kaaka was said to be interested in the well-being of the Ejura community where he lived and usually posted some of the ills of society on his social media handles, seeking redress.
The Times reports that the Insurance group, Hollard Ghana, with subsidiaries, Hollard Insurance and Hollard Life Assurance has achieved continent-wide recognition by winning the top award in Africa for financial communications and two other Certificates of Excellence for employee communications and regional excellence at the prestigious 2021 Africa SABRE Awards.
The SABREs are the world’s largest PR awards programme which recognizes Superior Achievement in Branding, Reputation, and Engagement across North America, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, South Asia, and Africa.
The fifth edition of the awards in Africa was hosted by the African Public Relations Association (APRA) with participants from Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Eswatini, Zambia, Namibia, United States of America, Cameroon, Malawi, Rwanda, DR Congo, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, France, among others.
The awards Hollard Ghana swept include, Hollard Insurance’s award-winning campaign #MeetArabaHollard #GhanaFirstVirtualInsurer (Launch of Hollard ChatInsure chatbot) won Financial Communications of the year.
The newspaper says that the Bank of Ghana has revised its directive for the “Treatment of Captured Payment Cards in Automated Teller Machines”.
The BoG in a statement said, this would seek to address the perennial complaints that emanate from the capture of Payment Cards at ATMs of regulated financial institutions.
It said it would also provide for standard procedures in retrieving payment cards captured by ATMs and also prescribe conditions for releasing, transporting or destroying the payment cards.
Conditions for the capture of payment card on ATMs include the wrongful entering of personal Identification Number more than the permitted number of times by a customer during an ATM transaction or the use of an expired or damaged card on an ATM.
The information to be presented by the card holder for the purposes of identification may take the form of one or more of the following; valid national identification card, valid driver’s licence, valid passport, valid SSNIT ID or valid voter identification card.
The Central Bank said all payment cards captured may be blocked or disabled by the issuer, among others.
Alternatively, an issuer shall provide reliable avenues for card holders to report issues of card capture and card blockage request or a card holder whose card has been captured by an ATM may lodge a complaint with the acquirer or the issuer and provide all relevant information to assist in identifying the card holder.
The card holder can get back his or her card if he or is able to provide required documents requested by the acquirer to authenticate the card holder.
GIK/APA