The Ministry of Trade and Industry with support from Google, the has launched an “Innovation Ghana”, an initiative to get Ghanaians to appreciate the use of the internet and its impact on the Ghanaian economy.

Innovation Ghana is aimed at strengthening and encouraging local products and services created by Ghanaians for Ghanaians. The launching was also used to recognize six outstanding Ghanaian innovators, “Innovation Heroes”, who have used the internet to positively contribute to the economy by developing and infusing creative ideas into products and services.

Innovation Ghana was born from a study conducted by Dalberg and commissioned by Google which revealed the socio-economic impact and potential of the internet in Ghana and how small and medium scale enterprise (SME) owners expected that the internet would help them grow their businesses.

One of the key findings of the study identified that internet enabled services were having a positive effect on the public and private sectors in the fields of agriculture, health, finance, education, energy, transport and commerce due to improved information and supply management, more effective communications as well as extended service delivery.

The study also established that without sufficient investment in infrastructure, policy makers faced limitations in their ability to drive socio-economic impact from internet use by citizens.

In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Haruna Iddrisu acknowledged the role micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) were playing in the socio-economic development of the country and the challenges they were facing.

He noted that it was against this backdrop that the government with assistance from the World Bank, launched an online portal for the MSMEs to raise awareness of services being provided to Ghanaian SMEs.

Commenting on the Dalberg report, Mr Haruna Iddrisu noted that government would continue to support greater access to the internt by continuing to increase infrastructure and access in order to provide stable and high quality last mile internet access to all.

“Developing infrastructure will increase access to information and allow new products and services to be built. These are the foundations for an innovative ecosystem”, he added.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu also promised government’s support to entrepreneurs in getting the needed funding, while creating access to markets and the ability to connect with markets, and providing them with a fair and transparent regulatory environment for them to operate.

The Innovation Heroes awards were presented to FaashionistaGh, an online source of information on the Ghanaian fashion industry; Leti Games, the first game development studio in Ghana and second in Sub-Saharan Africa and Dream Oval, an internet and mobile applications developer that allows online payments and distribution of information via SMS.

The rest were Ghana Decides, a non-partisan project aimed at fostering a better-informed electorate for a free, fair and safe 2012 election using online social media tools; Roots by Naa, a company dedicated to creating handmade fashion accessories out of Ghanaian textiles and Ghana Trade; a national web based products gallery that features locally manufactured products and services.

Country Manager for Google Ghana, Estelle Akofio-Sowah congratulated the award winners for being creative and presenting solutions to the Ghanaian populace, adding that, “the innovation awards reaffirm the findings of the Dalberg report that the internet is a tremendous, undisputed force for economic growth and social change. Their stories will inspire the next generation of innovators to dream big, to dream now and solve the problems of today using technology and the Internet.”

Credit: Jasmine Arku/Daily Graphic
Photo Credit: Naa Oyoo Quartey (one of the winners of this award)

The New fixed broadband packages of Vodafone Ghana. From 17th March, 2013, Vodafone will have four broadband packages available for fixed broadband users. Each package is designed to suit every lifestyle including those who need more from the Internet for either business or personal use.

Following the introduction of these revised packages, all existing customers will be migrated to these four packages from 17th March, 2013.

Browser

This package is designed for customers who regularly surf the internet, check emails or chat with friends on social media.

• GHc 65 monthly fee
• GHc 99 installation fee
• 3 months’ upfront payment
• 15GB data allowance valid for 30 days
• Fastest speeds possible in your area

If you’re an existing Vodafone customer, please review the table below to understand what these changes mean for you:

President John Mahama will today, Thursday May 9, 2013 inaugurate Ghana’s first solar power plant in Navrongo in the Upper East Region.

A statement issued from the presidency said: “Thursday’s inauguration of the 2MW solar power plant is however the first large scale power plant, constructed by the VRA to be fed into the national grid. It will be a major boost to government’s renewal energy plan as it prepares to also focus on wind, biomass and waste to energy”.

The two mega watts power plant is a fulfillment of government’s renewable energy programme.

In his State of the Nation Address in February this year, President Mahama announced that “we are progressing steadily in the area of renewable energy”.

Distribution of solar powered lamps as promised in the State of the Nation address has started.

The Government has also deployed some 10,000 units of solar home systems to off-grid homes in deprived communities and some national security and basic schools.

A 315 kilowatts solar plant has also been completed by government for the Noguchi Memorial Institute at Legon with support from JICA. The solar power is expected to augment the energy requirements of the Institute.

The Government has a target of 5000MW of generated capacity by 2016, and President Mahama, in the wake of the energy challenges that have confronted the country, has worked in the last four months to ensure a stabilisation and gradual normalisation of the situation.

Source: RadioXYZonline.com

“Tonaton” meaning “Buy and Sell” in Twi. Tonaton.com is a website where you can buy and sell almost everything. The best deals are often done with people who live in your own city or on your own street, so on Tonaton.com it’s easy to buy and sell locally. All you have to do is select your region.

It’s completely free to publish a classified ad on Tonaton.com, and it takes you less than 2 minutes. You can sign up for a free account and post ads easily every time. Or, if you don’t want to register, just go to Post Your Ad, fill in the form, and you’re done.

Tonaton.com has the widest selection of popular second hand items all over Ghana, which makes it easy to find exactly what you are looking for. So if you’re looking for a car, mobile phone, house, computer or maybe a pet, you will find the best deal on Tonaton.com.

]]> http://www.allthingsghana.com/news/waec-cancels-leaked-papers/feed/ 0 http://www.allthingsghana.com/news/hippos-chase-ndc-lawyer/ http://www.allthingsghana.com/news/hippos-chase-ndc-lawyer/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:12:06 +0000 All Things Ghana http://www.allthingsghana.com/?p=385

Kwabla Dogbe Senanu, the intriguing lawyer who made headlines for sleeping and snoring aloud at the Supreme Court during one of the sittings in the ongoing Presidential Election petition, over the weekend stormed the Nigerian-based Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) of Prophet T.B. Joshua where he made some jaw-dropping revelations.

Lawyer Senanu, during the church service that was telecast live to a worldwide audience on satellite channel Emmanuel TV, and rebroabcast on some local channels, told T.B. Joshua he was a troubled man who could not sleep at night because he often saw a big hippopotamus chasing him violently anytime he closed his eyes in an attempt to sleep at night.

Interestingly, Mr. Senanu said he did not see this big violent hippopotamus during the day and explained further that this made him sleep at odd places and times, even when he was driving or in court to represent a client.

The lawyer, who was counsel for the 327 persons that applied to the Supreme Court to be allowed to join the ongoing Presidential Election petition, confessed to TB Joshua that he resided at Tema and drove on the Tema-Accra Motorway to work every morning, but because of his habit of sleeping behind the steering-wheel, he had been involved in close to about 80 different road accidents within a short period.

Lawyer Senanu, with his wife, had gone to TB Joshua’s church, the Synagogue Church of All Nations, to be purged of his troubles and he told the Prophet that after the deliverance, he slept like a baby.

The senior lawyer further told TB Joshua that his problems were so severe that there were times he could not read his own handwriting in court, although he had personally gone through what he had written and prepared very well before entering the courtroom.

Recounting the famous incident during which he slept at the Supreme Court instead of acting as counsel for some 327 National Democratic Congress (NDC) activists, Lawyer Senanu said it was one of his several courtroom-sleeping dramas.

He said on that fateful day, he suddenly fell asleep in court during the hearing for the application and was dreaming when he faintly heard the voice of one of the Supreme Court Justices, Justice Dotse, speaking from afar.

Lawyer Senanu said eventually when he was woken up from his deep sleep and asked a few questions in relation to the case, he fumbled, becoming a laughing stock in court because he did not know what to say.

In what seemed like an attempt by lawyer Senanu to convince the Prophet that he was speaking the truth, he brought out a copy of a Daily Graphic publication that reported the sleeping-in-court episode.

The Ghanaian lawyer said he was sure ‘spirits’ were tormenting him and not allowing him to perform well as a qualified legal practitioner.

The troubled lawyer said he wanted to be delivered of his problems so he could effectively contribute to the legal team of the (NDC) so as to win the court case.

By Halifax Ansah-Addo
Source: Daily Guide Newspaper

There are two prevailing and conflicting views of progress in Africa: the ‘incrementalists’ and the ‘cyclicalists’. The incrementalists say Africa is ‘catching up’; the cyclicalists say it is ‘not catching up fast enough’ because it is locked in a ‘two steps forward one step backward’ rhythm.

My opinion is that both views are muddled.

The incrementalists attribute technical backwardness to ‘problems of poverty’. They insist that because development is a long, drawn-out process, Africa’s current, much talked about, growth should be seen as a ‘wave’, the effects of an ‘accumulation’ of small successes.

The cyclicalists would point to the recent polls in Kenya and Ghana to show that elections in Afrcia are not getting better. More experience and more money do not seem to be improving their quality. Kenya appeared to have spent about four times what the UK, with more eligible voters, typically spends on elections. There are some in Ghana who insist that its 1979 election was superior in accuracy to the 2012 one.

The cyclicalists thumb their noses at the recent commodities boom, reminding all who care to listen that in the early 1970s a very similar boom paved the way for a debt crisis a decade later.

However, for clarity in this debate we need to hone in on a more concise phenomenon like ‘economic transformation’, and leave the over-philosophical theories of ‘development’ aside for a while.

One can quibble over exotica such as the ‘meaningfulness’ or ‘inherent goodness’ of such social change, but at least the measurement can be objective. It is hard to quarrel over the fact that Japan and Singapore today have achieved a phase-shift unattained by Myanmar and Pakistan. Whether or not Pakistan is a better place today than 40 years ago is harder to pin down unless one descends to the philosophical.

I urge the same degree of focus when evaluating the post-colonial African transformation project and how it has fared so far.

The incremental-change argument flies in the face of the evidence. Economic transformation is, on the contrary, abrupt, disruptive and traumatic.

The idea of accumulated institutional reforms leading eventually to a snap is similarly unsupported in history. Countries that have achieved the phase-shift have diverse institutional characters, with highly differing levels of unfinished business where institutional reform is concerned, but they all share high levels of tolerance for fast-paced technical change, technology adoption and, above all, a strong culture of punishing technical failure. The meritocracy of these nations hinges on one’s conformity to new technical values.

Rather than accumulative processes, countries are launched into a phase-shift by movements led by technical mavericks. The industrialists who created the wave of FDI into Deng Xiaoping’s China and built the outsourcing model; the lean-way industrialists of Japan; the scientific vanguard that turned church-ruled Europe on its head; and the infrastructure monopolists of America, all had one thing in common: a sudden break with tradition and a complete shift of productive technique.

Technical Maverick Movements (TMMs) when they become part of the establishment are adept at harnessing power. The US defence-industrial complex and Japan’s MITI-keiretsu complex, until they ceased to be disruptive, are good examples of how new technical values can become the driving force of a society, and how mavericks, like the wartime code-breakers of Great Britain, can become mandarins.

Africa’s enduring elite has refused to cede any space to new technical values and the TMMs that generate them. Like all value systems, new technical values are binary in nature: they are either in place or they are not.

The TMMs that are forming in Africa, whether in Kenya’s Silicon Savannah, at the head of the factory revival in Nigeria (the Dangotean era, if you wish) or in the transcontinental ‘mass banking’ movement, pockets of excellence though they are, are sadly fringe shows. They are in no position yet to dominate for the time-span of one generation needed to incubate the right technical values across society.

The cyclicalists are also wrong because like the incrementalists they see a steady-state growth process. But it is the same Africans who when in America are seen as highly productive workers that at home run heavily resourced airlines that never depart on time or ever respond to customer complaints (Nigeria’s Arik, for example).

The so-called ‘pockets of excellence’ in Africa are actually the key to the puzzle.

In Africa’s mass banking TMM, you have UT Bank in Ghana which disrupted the financial industry by promising to process all loans within 48 hours, when all around bureaucratic and corrupt practice was the expectation; and Equity Bank, which showed that you can make profits without concentrating solely on the tiny upper class. Both clearly demonstrate that technical values are either/or. You either shift or you don’t. There isn’t a series of endless intermediates.

Nor is there any inevitability about technical relapse as the cyclicalists like to portray. Example: quality standards in Ghana’s cocoa industry have survived several turns and tides, as have standards in tea cultivation in Kenya. In fact, TMMs thrive in spite of the odds!

The point however is that TMMs need power, and at scale. Otherwise you get fragmentary results, such as mobile banking in Kenya, aviation and logistics in Ethiopia, or large scale factory production in Nigeria. And here too, you either have the power or you don’t.

It is a myth that all Africa has to do is ‘quicken its pace’ in ‘catching up’ with the economically transformed world.

African countries will either experience sudden change or they will continue the current strategy of adapting better to their situation, as pockets of excellence remain dots on a mediocre landscape. There is no middle way.

Bright B Simons is the inventor of the world’s most widely-adopted mobile anti-counterfeiting technology (www.mpedigree.net) and a researcher at IMANI Ghana.

Source: IMANI Ghana

My first day in secondary school, I didn’t cry. I had heard horror stories of how the seniors and sixth formers would punish us severely just for being Form 1 students and just because they could. I don’t know why I didn’t shed unsightly tears when I was asked to kneel down either during the first day or the first week of boarding school. Don’t get me wrong, I did cry at some point but only because I disliked the conditions of the school and wanted out. My Dad ignored me on that point. Glad he did though.

The other horror stories I hadn’t heard of maybe because no-one told me about them later on filtered to me through the gossip grapevine. I say horror because to me it was. Man, was I green! I would come to my dorm from lunch or after prep and see the down part of a bunk bed enshrouded with a cloth hiding whatever lay within it. I would shrug it off and think someone wanted their privacy. Later kwraaaaa (Ghanaian slang for ‘a while passed’) someone told me why the tents had been raised. I was shocked! That was my first hearing of the word ‘Supi’, a Ghanaian word for lesbianism. So there were two girls in there doing ‘it’? How? Using what? Later I got to hear that items such, as candles and banana were used as the penetrating organ!! WHAT??!? Over time I put my ear closer to the ground and heard of how a girl got initiated into the act. It starts with a letter.

A letter. When a senior calls you and tells you to write them a letter you know ITS GOING DOWN! What are you going to write in a letter to a girl you don’t know from Eve? ‘Hi, my name is Awuradwoa and I am 16 please don’t take my virginity….?’

I heard of how some got into the act because their so-called ‘school mother’ (a senior who takes care of you) used the opportunity to abuse their ‘motherly’ authority.

I always thought the Supi act would be over during the sixth form reign. Why? Because it was rumoured that it started with them. I didn’t say oh! How wrong I was. So just last week, a colleague told me that it had gotten much worse during her school days there (my alma mater). I was shocked. Apparently, what goes on now is that the male Supi (lesbian acting as a male) wore hoodies to signify their status whilst the female wore just the usual uniform. There were reported cases of girls fighting because one girl had been turned away by the other ‘male’ who preferred fresher meat. According to the story, one girl became hysterical because her ‘boyfriend’ had turned her away for having excessively long fingernails. ‘How can I hurt her with these nails?’ she screamed in frustration so the story went. So what happens when the ‘boyfriend’ completes school? She hands over her hoodie to her girlfriend to take over. So the act is now a never-ending cycle. Its more like a generational curse if you ask me. I was even more shocked when I heard that the girls involved in these acts never attended church or church related programs. I guess for fear of being picked out by a prophet. Strangely or should I say by an Act of God, these Supi girls contracted a strange greenish rash around their neck and chest regions. By their wicked acts they shall be known. What was school authorities doing about this? Students caught wearing hoodies were punished. But would that stop the act I asked myself?

But Supi wasn’t just in girls boarding schools. Whilst in school we often heard how some of our former JSS classmates were being ‘chopped’ by the seniors in the boys’ schools. I heard of one guy undergoing this treatment and it made me sad. That guy is fine! Recently, a friend told me how he chanced upon his dorm prefect being sexually attacked! As to whether the prefect was gay he didn’t know but that scene he would never get out of his head. Traumatic experience I would say. One guy in one of the Cape Coast schools was daily molested by one of his seniors and due to his inability to report, he was sacked and the senior suspended. The molested guy ends up in another boys school where he apparently had become a sort of ‘gay’ star amongst students who had heard of his previous escapades and had become a legend. Students fought to have this guy as their ‘girlfriend’. He was blessed with fine skin and a slender body which was almost feminine. This dude never lacked anything he wanted whilst in that school, people literally gave him everything!
How far back can we trace this ungodly act of ‘supism’? I decided to ask my mom if she had heard of such acts during her time in school. Oh yes! She replied. I was shocked! She further went to describe how two girls would stay over in school during weekends and getting caught in the act by some watchman or teacher.

Do parents think about these things before letting their wards go off into boarding school? Or do they only worry about other vices such as smoking and drinking? Do they talk to their daughters about such acts and to desist from them or tell their sons the dangers of such acts? Or the parents are too shy to bring such subjects up?

Sometimes I hear stories of how some women who started the Supi act are unable to quit even after marriage to a man. Either they find new lovers or maintain the old ones they had. For the guys, some are unable to get married and leave the country to countries where being gay is more acceptable. Some guys I hear get married to a woman as a front and continue the dastardly act behind their wives back. A question I ponder about is how a wife would respond if her husband confesses to her that he is gay and doesn’t think their marriage is going to work? How does she compete with a rival who is a man?

A lot of talk has gone on in the country for the past 2 weeks concerning homosexuality being made legal. Some strongly oppose, others are nonchalant and say there are more important things to talk about whilst some strongly support in quiet. I believe that the root cause of the build up of homosexuality in this country starts in our secondary/high schools and if corrective actions aren’t put into place immediately it will get to a point where nothing can be done but to surrender. O_0

What was your experience during your time in Secondary school? Did you ever hear of any such acts during your time or were you ever a victim?

By Naa Oyoo Quartey
Source: Ganyobi Naa’s Blog

Below is the warning sign:

What is Ghana turning into? A sex haven?

Queen Mother Nana Yaa Asantewaa

A columnist of The Ghanaian Times, Mr. Collins Essamuah, has stated that ethnocentrism in Ghanaian politics is real but not dangerous to the country’s democracy.

He said though the Volta Regions and the Ashanti Regions remain the political “world banks” of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) respectively, they have not by themselves guaranteed victory for either political party since 1992.

Mr. Essamuah spoke at a public forum on Elections and Ethnic Politics in Ghana organized by the management of Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra.

The forum formed part of a series of lectures on ‘Reflections on Security’ at the centre to tackle sensitive national issues by politicians and commentators.

Mr. Essamuah claims that victory for either party since 1992 has been based rather on voting patterns in the Western, Central and Greater Accra Regions, which are melting pots of West African cultural forms and ethnic groups.

Mr. Essamuah concluded that ethnocentric politics in Ghana cannot be harmful thereof.

But, it is difficult to understand how one Essamuah logic leads to another. Clarifications have to be made.

It is no rocket science understanding the socio-political geography of Ghana. The Danquah-Busia tradition, which is the mainstay ideology of the NPP, has its political roots in Kumasi, the Ashanti Region (Asantes).

The ideology of the NDC however, is one that perhaps is still evolving but nonetheless still blends Nkrumahism with a belief in J.J. Rawlings’ Pragmatism. It is pre-mathematical understanding why this cornerstone concoction finds its most staunch following in the Volta Region where almost the whole region comprises of the Gbe people (amongst them, majority Ewes).

The fundamental question is why these two ethnic groups are pitched against one another in modern Ghanaian politics?

Before the advent of the modern political system in the country Ghana, the Gold Coast itself had been subject to a Dahomey (Gbe) verses Ashanti political tradition.

It is important to put into perspective that none of those struggles – be they economic or political – to dominate the West African Coast during the Trans-Atlantic-Slave Trade period, resulted in any meaningful socio-economic or political gain for the sub region.

Rather these two ‘elephants’ plundered the natural and human resources of West Africa – sold millions of slaves to Europeans to carry to the New World – and left our lands still recovering from the havoc in 2013. Have we recovered from that shameful history?

I think not.

Mr. Essamuah may think that the modern structure of democracy in Ghana is stable. And I can agree to a very general extent. However, even in the swing regions of Western, Central and Greater Accra, various populations of Ewes (or people loyal to them) and Asantes (or groups loyal to them) do political battle to carry those regions.

Furthermore, the ethnic affiliation of the presidential candidate himself has stood a great deal in determining which ethnic group votes for the NPP or the NDC.

Hence, the Ghanaian political climate may be stable, but only because the rest of Ghana, the Ga people, other Akan ethnic groups, Fantes, other Gbe ethnic groups, the Northerners in Ghana etc. perhaps, continue to play a major buffer between the two warring factions – Ewes and Asantes.

And though Ashanti may never return to its glory, nor Dahomey to its formidable war machinery, Asantes and Ewes in Ghana, I am afraid, still find this furtive zone to continue to do battle within Ghana’s political climate.

That is why the current political climate in Ghana cannot be conducive when we begin to understand its historical underpinnings.

If anything at all, we should all eschew ethnocentric politics, for it has not, and it will not move our dear country forward. That is in sum, Nkrumah’s stance not only on Ghana but on the whole African Union.

Ethnic politics is just another name for ethnic warfare without rifles and machetes. Carried to excess, it will be enough to cause people to do unto their sisters, brothers and friends what they would otherwise shun away from.

That is not to say that we must abandon ethnic dignity, ethnic culture and ethnic diversity. These things make us Ghanaians. We are Ghanaians because we have inherited some of the most industrious, however debatable, cultures from many ethnic groups.

If anything, that makes us culturally wealthy. And that wealth, harnessed in its most profound and pure forms can be pushed to ignite a revolution of unbiased politics in Ghana and forge forward the socio-economic development of all her people.

Source: The Patapaa Review