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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello, good afternoon. Welcome to join us today. We're coming to you live from our studios in Kokumlemlemwe on DTT because we're free to air on
00:07 DSTV channel 421 and GoTV channel 125. This is Joy News, your home of independent, fearless and
00:14 credible journalism. Coming up this afternoon, Tama Oil Refinery begins
00:19 investigations to establish the cause of this morning's blaze which consumed portions of the refineries pipeline at the
00:27 Temahevi Industrial Area. We'll hear from the PRO after firefighters managed to put out the blaze.
00:33 Also this afternoon, five persons killed in a mine collapse at the Akon community in Taqwa of the
00:44 Western Region. Moe, as manager of the facility, shuts down the affected site.
00:53 Plus police at Kunsanase on a manhunt for a
00:57 54 year old man who allegedly inflicted multiple machete wounds on a 34 year old girlfriend for fear of
01:05 ditching him. We have details
01:08 for you.
01:10 We have business sports, world news and showbiz all coming up this hour. We're also live on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram
01:20 and X on Joy News on TV. My personal handle is @denanaaisha. Please stay for details.
01:45 Firefighters have this morning managed to put out a blaze which consumed some pipelines belonging to the Tama Oil Refinery
01:51 located at the Hevhi Industrial Area. The timely intervention of the firemen prevented further havoc to the
01:58 logistics of the state-owned refinery.
02:00 Acting PRO of the Tama Oil Refinery, Mathilde Mpare, said
02:05 investigations are underway to establish the cause of the fire.
02:09 She arrived late fears the incident will not in any way interrupt oil supply by the refinery.
02:17 She spoke with Joy News' Carlos Kaloni.
02:19 We investigated to know what actually caused it and what measures can be put in place to
02:25 avert the situation from recurring. What level of damage have you recorded as a result of the fire? As
02:33 indicated there's not been any damage recorded at the moment. So we are waiting for the investigations to be
02:40 to commence and to also complete for us to know if there's been any potential damage to the line.
02:47 How critical are these lines to the operations of Tama Oil Refinery?
02:50 Okay, so this line is the 12-inch pipeline that serves for LPG. So every input that comes to the harbour,
03:00 this is the line used to discharge it. So though this belongs to Quantum, Tor has
03:07 kind of
03:09 access to it as well because that is the line that uses it to pump to the loading to the MOP
03:14 tanks and then it is discharged at the loading gantry.
03:18 So we have a common use of the line just that this booster station belongs to Quantum.
03:23 How is this going to impact operations of Tor?
03:26 For now,
03:28 it wouldn't because we had almost completed a discharge from the vessel.
03:32 So the only thing we did was to isolate the line so that the pressure buildup does not continue or increases.
03:39 We've been able to isolate all of that and so the situation is under control as we speak now.
03:44 Yeah, safety concerns. I mean, did you have people on the ground checking to ascertain?
03:51 Does that mean that negligence on the part of somebody? No, not at all because the safety people on site plus the security people on
03:58 site actually gave the alarm and so the siren came at the right time for us to respond.
04:03 So what is the way forward? The way forward will be after the investigations have been concluded.
04:07 We are told that you actually
04:10 brought in some
04:12 fire brigade from which unit? From Tor and then from the Ghana National Fire Service.
04:19 Precisely. So for now we can say that the situation is under control? It's under control.
04:25 What would you want to say to the public? I mean those of us who are concerned that Tor is under fire and we're going
04:30 to lose and we're not going to have fuel to drive our vehicles and all that.
04:34 Oh, they shouldn't be alarmed at all because the situation has been brought under control and this is not going to impact on
04:39 what is supposed to go to the market.
04:41 Yes, it's just the discharge that has ended but for the loading gantry at Tor, it's still working and product will go out as usual.
04:49 Five persons have been confirmed dead in a mine collapse at the Akon community, a mining site in Taqua.
04:55 Bodies of the deceased have been removed and deposited at the Taqua morgue. The managers of the mine have
05:02 subsequently shut down the affected site for further safety investigations.
05:07 My colleague Samuel Kodjobre has been following the development for us and has come through with this report.
05:13 The Akon community mining is a major part of the Taqua community mining program commissioned by the president in
05:20 2021. Data available indicates that
05:24 4,887 persons worked directly in the mine. On September 13, there was a major accident.
05:33 Dan, not his real name, is a miner at the Abasi side of the Akon community mining where the accident happened.
05:41 We got to work but felt the atmosphere had changed. No one could say anything.
05:47 So we hanged around for a while.
05:49 It was then that one of our people came to hint us on the extent of accident that has happened
05:55 underground and right in front of us, they brought four boys who had died and we thought that will be all.
06:02 But unfortunately, we heard more people were involved.
06:07 He alleges that those who died in the accident are more than have been declared.
06:11 What collapsed is serious.
06:14 Someone had sent a gang of 15 who were going to bring their load to the surface.
06:21 But those people cannot be accounted for after the incident.
06:24 So none of the people who had come there to bring their loads and the items survived, meaning there could be more people
06:31 underground.
06:33 According to Dan, safety measures are in deficit in that part of the mine.
06:38 Boss, there are no maintenance at Abasi. You can squat for a long while to get to your face.
06:45 We all do squats before we get in there because there are no maintenance at the Abasi side.
06:50 So I'm here on a Tuesday morning to speak to managers of the Taka Mining Scheme.
06:56 We meet them, giving safety briefings to the miners before the start of the day's activities.
07:03 The general manager here, Mark, rejects Dan's allegations.
07:07 It is true that where we have restricted workers not to go and mine is where some people went illegally to work.
07:21 They unfortunately mined the pillar that supports the ceiling, leading to it caving in on them.
07:27 We got four persons who were injured. They were taken to Redeemer Hospital to be cared for.
07:33 But unfortunately, five other persons lost their lives.
07:37 This is the biggest fatality since we started.
07:41 He says they cannot hide the fact of the accident due to the high interest of the state in the operations.
07:47 I don't think I can condone such evil.
07:51 In the underground, it will be difficult to keep decomposed bodies there due to the stench they can emanate.
07:57 It is even difficult to get oxygen underground. So keeping decomposed bodies wouldn't allow people to work.
08:03 If you keep decomposed bodies underground, people can't work. It's not possible.
08:09 Mark says safety is the number one priority.
08:13 He says it's not just about safety. It's about the safety of the people.
08:17 It's not possible.
08:21 Mark says safety is one thing they don't compromise in the mine.
08:25 We mobilize our workers and sensitize them on the need to adhere to the guidelines management gives them in terms of safety.
08:35 So it is unfortunate.
08:37 Five lives.
08:41 But what are the real numbers involved in this accident?
08:45 There are three people who work directly at the mine to get the real fact.
08:49 One of them is Abdul.
08:51 There are no other bodies underground.
08:55 Because the day it happened, they removed the five bodies and cleaned the entire pit.
09:01 Mark, the general manager, reveals that to correct the defect at the Abasi side of the mine,
09:09 they have closed it down for two weeks to ensure a safety audit and correctional measures are put in place.
09:17 The underground captain and his team will conduct an inspection.
09:23 Now we have to let our underground captain and his team go and conduct an inspection of the place to advise us on the steps to be taken before we open the shaft to mining again.
09:34 In case things have gone wrong there, we need to correct them before we start mining.
09:39 We will do this to ensure that this kind of accident does not happen again.
09:43 Some of the workers here who work at the Abasi side of the Akon community mining scheme are not happy the shaft is being closed for two weeks.
09:58 But the company says it is necessary to avert the recurrence of the accident that has claimed five people in the mine.
10:06 Police in Takwa say they also saw five dead bodies and four injured persons being brought out of the mine,
10:13 but have begun their investigations to unravel the fact.
10:17 For JOY News, Samuel Kodjoe-Breeze, Akon, Takwa.
10:24 And in the Ashanti region, police at Kuntunase are on a manhunt for a 54-year-old man who allegedly inflicted multiple machete wounds on his 34-year-old girlfriend for fear of her ditching him.
10:38 Kwabena Tofo's attack left his girlfriend of three years, Loveya Osei, with multiple machete wounds after surviving the attempted murder at Patryensa near Kuntunase in the Ashanti region.
10:53 Loveya Osei says she is living in constant anxiety and fear of being attacked by her runaway boyfriend or her mentor of her security desk,
11:02 caught up with a victim at her Patryensa residence following her discharge from the Kuntunase Government Hospital.
11:10 The two lovebirds lived happily together for over three years until September 16, 2023, when Loveya graduated from her dressmaking training.
11:22 Tofo, a native of Mansur, Agresum, who lives at Ewukudako near Akra, Newtown, sponsored Loveya through the training.
11:32 He is said to have overheard some participants at the graduation ceremony suggesting the lady would ditch him.
11:40 Loveya says her explanation and assurance of love for Kwabena Tofo did not yield results.
11:47 The couple returned to the woman's Patryensa hometown last week Wednesday only for Tofo to attack the victim at about 12 a.m. with a kitchen knife he brought from Akra.
11:59 She survived the attack, receiving multiple machete wounds on the fingers, stomach, ear, thigh, among other parts of her body.
12:10 Loveya insists she had no plans to ditch a man who sponsored her to learn dressmaking.
12:16 He feared I would ditch him after my graduation because his friends had told him so.
12:25 Those statements took better part of him during the graduation.
12:30 So the following Tuesday, he went down to shop for the knife and told me that knife was meant for me.
12:38 It is the same knife he brought to Kumasi to attack me with at about 12 a.m. after we've enjoyed meals together.
12:46 He said he will kill me and end his life as well.
12:50 He cut me multiple times in the hands, ears, stomach, thighs as well as fingers.
12:57 They have all been sutured.
13:05 According to Loveya, the attack has left her in constant fear for her life.
13:10 I was afraid that he would kill me. I was afraid that he would kill my husband.
13:16 I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:20 I was afraid that he would kill my children. I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:27 I was afraid that he would kill my children. I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:37 I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:40 I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:43 I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:46 I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:49 I was afraid that he would kill my children.
13:52 From Kumasi, for JOY News, Oyeme interior reporting.
14:00 Sad story. Some applicants in the limited voter registration exercise in the pro-east constituency of Bono East region
14:08 are demanding an extension of the exercise which ends on October 2.
14:13 Some have spent more than two days in queues due to challenges in network connectivity.
14:19 They continue to lose productive hours and money to the exercise.
14:23 Nanaabu Achieyadom has been speaking to some of them.
14:27 Limited voter registration exercise across the country.
14:32 We still have numbers of people, new applicants, queuing up for the registration exercise.
14:38 The numbers continue to grow at various registration centers we have visited in the Ashanti region.
14:44 We are currently at the Asakori-Mampong municipality, the EC office here, where the limited voter registration exercise is currently ongoing.
14:52 As you can see, the numbers are still high. People are still coming in to participate in the limited voter registration exercise.
15:00 I have with me currently the EC officer here and I'll be engaging them.
15:05 Madam, welcome to JOY News.
15:07 So far, how has the process been? When we came here, we've seen the numbers continue to grow day in and day out.
15:14 Yeah, it's true. The numbers keep on increasing.
15:17 But we are able to register them. Those that you see there, by close of day, have been able to register them.
15:24 Though the number is increasing every day, but we do register them any time they come.
15:29 What could be the cause of the high increase of the numbers we have here?
15:34 I can't really tell, but I think... I can't really tell why the numbers keep on increasing because we've done a lot of registration.
15:42 So I don't know why the numbers still keep on increasing.
15:45 Are they feeling reluctant to participate in the exercise or you have any other challenge restricting you from registering some people?
15:54 No, we don't have any challenge registering them.
15:57 And I don't think they feel reluctant coming for the registration because as you can see, day in and day out, they come and we register them.
16:05 On a daily basis, we register not less than 150 a day. At most, over 200.
16:11 So we are doing the registration. I don't know why they keep on coming, but I think by close of the registration exercise, we have been able to register most of them.
16:22 Okay, so you register almost 150 in a day. How many people are you expecting?
16:27 More than 150 in a day?
16:28 Yeah, we do closely an average of 190-200, between 200-250 daily.
16:37 But what's the number you're expecting to register at the end of the entire exercise?
16:42 Oh, I don't have any number that I'm expecting. I don't have any number that I'm expecting.
16:47 But what of so far, how many people have you been able to register?
16:51 So far, as of yesterday, I've been able to register 3,194. As of yesterday. 3,194.
17:02 And then we still see people tripping in to participate in the exercise. Is that not a worry to you?
17:08 Because the days to the end of the registration exercise is near. 2nd October is just near.
17:14 I believe those here, we can register them. As I told you, on a daily basis, we can do over 200. And those here, we started at 8 o'clock.
17:23 So I think by the end of 5pm, we'd have registered most of them, if not all.
17:30 So you said, as of yesterday, you've registered how many people?
17:34 3,194.
17:36 3,194. Thank you very much. What's your name, please?
17:40 Angela Frielce.
17:41 So as of yesterday, they've been able to register 3,184 new applicants.
17:47 That is with regards to the limited voters registration exercise going on across the country, particularly here in the Asokeri-Mampo municipality.
17:57 But let's talk to some applicants who have been here for quite some time.
18:00 Nanaia Obuache, I'm there. Definitely, we'll bring you more in our subsequent bulletins.
18:08 But Ghana's ambition to eradicate poverty and the sustainable development goals may not be fully achieved,
18:14 as many beneficiaries of the social protection program do little to demand better livelihood support from the government.
18:22 The civil society platform for social protection Ghana is re-echoing the need for Ghanaians to appreciate the entitlement to programs under the government's social protection policy.
18:34 They believe their approach of seeing the policy as a right and not a charity will facilitate poverty eradication in the country by 2030.
18:44 Under the national social protection policy, the government of Ghana constituted a framework in response to vulnerability and poverty.
18:53 Five programs, including the Ghana school feeding program and the livelihood empowerment against poverty LEAP, are to guarantee relief for a section of the Ghanaian population.
19:04 Civil society organizations are citing the lack of insight into concepts underpinning the policy as a major reason for the infectious rollout of the programs.
19:14 Christiana Bedema, a social policy specialist with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.
19:21 One of the things that can help us is to also empower the demand side of social protection.
19:26 Because with the supply side, government is doing its best, but the people who are receiving the benefits must also understand that they are entitled to those benefits.
19:35 Because that changes the narrative.
19:37 If you know that you have a right to something, you are entitled to it.
19:41 The way you approach it is different from when you feel that it's a charity, it's a gift, you're not entitled, it's a favor that somebody's doing to you.
19:48 If you think it's a right, you approach it in a different way.
19:51 It changes how you even provide feedback on the program and how you see things.
19:56 So with the rights campaign, we want to empower our citizens, Ghanaians, people who receive social protection programs, that these programs are there for them.
20:04 And the government has a duty to respect, to promote, to protect and fulfill this right.
20:10 Available data suggests that over 2 million Ghanaians live in abject poverty as of 2022.
20:16 Under Ghana's $3 billion IMF bill out, the government has committed to expanding the LEAP coverage to all 2.5 million extremely poor individuals by 2024, as estimated by the Ghana Living Standards Survey.
20:31 Stakeholders believe the target could only be achieved if the government prioritizes social protection as a right of the people.
20:38 We've also gone into the IMF program and for three years a lot of commitments have been made by the government.
20:45 It's also very important that after the three years, what happens?
20:49 So the government has made commitments for the social sector, especially the LEAP cash transfer and other programs to make sure that they protect funding for those programs.
20:58 But after the three years, what do we want to see?
21:01 We want to see this continuous commitment for the sector. And how will government continue to see this as a priority?
21:09 It's if they see this as a right for Ghanaians. They realize that it's a right they must fulfill, they must promote, they must protect at all times, with or without the IMF program.
21:20 So that is why this is important and the atmosphere is very conducive for this campaign.
21:26 In Ghana, street begging is an unmistakable sight to behold, despite being an unlawful practice.
21:33 The CSOs are partly attributing the seemingly unending begging habit to reduced implementation of livelihood projects to support genuinely poverty-stricken individuals.
21:44 Oberon Jalil Odum is with Inclusion Ghana.
21:48 I think that once they don't know that this is a right, and so they cannot claim it,
21:54 obviously if you know that there is an intervention by government, it means that you can actually submit yourself to be assessed so that you can benefit from it.
22:05 But many people don't know this. And so I think that critically, what government should do a lot more is to make sure that they are communicating the programs to the general citizens.
22:18 People want to know. People must know. And people should know.
22:22 For JOY News, my name is Emmanuel Bright-Kwiku.
22:25 The Upper West Regional Director of Environmental Health, Nata Frida, has been moaned the frequent interference of chiefs and political figures in the work of environmental inspectors,
22:39 resulting in the discontinuation of prosecution of sanitation offenders.
22:44 She says the practice discourages the personnel on the field.
22:48 Nata Frida was speaking at a two-day training workshop for environmental health sanitation prosecutors.
22:55 JOY News' Upper West Regional correspondent, Rafik Salam, reports.
22:59 One of the biggest challenges faced by the Environmental Health and Sanitation Department across the country is the inability to have the courage to prosecute sanitation offenders.
23:13 Though a greater number of metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies in the country have instituted bylaws to nip their practice in the bud,
23:22 they are unable to do so because they don't have enough prosecutors at the Environmental Health Department to execute their tasks.
23:31 In some of the assemblies where they have prosecutors, the bylaws cannot be enforced because they are not gazetted.
23:40 Speaking at a two-day workshop for environmental health prosecutors in the five regions in the northern Gulf of the country,
23:48 Upper West Regional Director of Environmental Health, Nata Frida, bemoaned the frequent interference in the work of the staff, by politicians and chiefs,
24:00 who she said discourages staff from further pursuing the cases.
24:04 Our own people are not helping us, particularly the politicians and chiefs.
24:10 Most of our officers are discouraged because they go out, they bring a list of sanitation offenders.
24:19 When it gets to the table of the politicians, before you realize, about half of the names are crossed out.
24:28 So what we do is we sit back and wait. So who am I sending to court?
24:34 If I'm not sending A, why will I be sending B?
24:38 And for all you know, for those names that are crossed out, those are the names, or those are the offenders who have committed previous crimes.
24:48 And so it leaves our officers frustrated and angry sometimes.
24:54 Nata Frida, however, disclosed that in the coming weeks, some sanitation offenders in the Wa municipality will be held before the courts.
25:03 I'm also happy to announce to this house that, with or without gazette files, very soon, probably next week, Wa municipality is prosecuting some other offenders.
25:18 We've had the list ready, it's been ready, of course, we have sent it for the political vetting.
25:24 Fortunately, no name was removed. And so we are putting it forward before the courts.
25:30 And very soon, probably next week, there will be a court hearing on that.
25:36 An official of the Environmental Health Directorate of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, Kweku Kwansa, though agreed on the ritual interference of politicians and chiefs on the work of the sanitary inspectors,
25:52 he started with the view that building the capacities of the staff will make them to overcome it.
25:58 The real challenge we have in this sector is to build the capacity of the people.
26:03 When people are confident, when people know what to do, when people who are going to do prosecution knows the law very well,
26:10 then the issue of interferences, they will find a way of going around it.
26:16 Amid loud honking and exhaust fumes that characterize urban traffic, a green solution is silently emerging.
26:27 Electric motorcycles, agile and eco-friendly, are zipping through the gridlock, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional gas-powered bikes.
26:37 At the forefront of this electronic revolution is Kofa Technologies' innovative Swap and Go program.
26:45 Michael Eshale has more in our latest story on air quality.
26:51 It is a regular day on the streets of Accra and as usual, cars lock up in traffic and motorcycles meander the confusing maze.
27:00 There is a motorbike everywhere you look.
27:03 Some of the riders are in the delivery business while others use the bikes for their commute.
27:08 Many of them are fossil fuel consuming monsters that emit cocktails of pollutants.
27:16 Electric motorcycles are silently carving a path through the chaos, offering a clean and efficient alternative to their gas-guzzling counterparts.
27:25 It is now generally accepted that the future is electric.
27:29 For many people that use combustion engines, especially drivers, their concern is how to go about it,
27:36 more especially on the availability of charging stations and batteries.
27:41 Polluting sources of energy to cleaner sources of energy. So we are focused on how do we help Africans make that transition, starting here from Ghana.
27:50 Ida Mano is the Vice President in charge of marketing at Kofa Technologies.
27:56 We decided that with our Swap and Go technology, we were able to build a solution that is more into replacing the energy sources that motorcycles use.
28:09 So with Swap and Go technology, we can empower people to use electric motorcycles and have them, it's a form that is analogous to petrol stations.
28:20 Kofa's Swap and Go initiative is a game changer for electric motorcycle enthusiasts.
28:27 Here, riders can exchange their depleted batteries for fully charged ones in a matter of minutes, all while reducing harmful emissions.
28:36 Looking at how can we move society from a carbon polluting society to a society that is still powered, is still productive,
28:47 but using cleaner, greener forms of energy that are not polluting the environment, causing adverse health effects on members of the society.
28:56 Some bikers like Priscilla Afeli have seen great improvement since she switched to an EV bike.
29:04 I was surprised when I saw the electric bike first, I was like, "Ah, what is this? Is this some toy?"
29:11 But when I sat on it and I rode it for a while, I was like, "Jesus Christ, this is so cool!"
29:16 If you ask me, with a power bike and then with this, I would first class take this, because there's no noise, no pollution of air, and it's just smooth on the way, it's just cool to go.
29:32 Ghana hopes to achieve net zero emissions by 2025.
29:36 Studies show that on average, a motorbike produces 119.6 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, assuming there's a single rider.
29:46 Having two or more riders will make the bike heavier, which would make the engine work harder and produce more carbon dioxide.
29:54 Electric bikes will be a real game changer.
29:58 Muftau Omar works as a data analyst and has been monitoring data on CO2 emissions at COFEX Laboratory.
30:07 For non-EV bikes, they are at the moment doing about 23 kilometers per liter, which in turn would put them around, say, 2.3 or 2.2 kilograms of CO2 for every liter of petrol that they use.
30:28 We have monitoring dashboards to track all these things.
30:31 I think in the last month, we were doing 170 kilograms of CO2 saved every month on the average, but now I think this month is around 200 kilograms of CO2 saved per rider on a daily basis.
30:50 We are able to even track on our phones. We've built dashboards to enable us to track all these metrics.
30:55 The end game for us is to really have more bikes in the system and to offset as much CO2 as possible.
31:01 EV motorbikes make up a small fraction of all bikes roaming free on the streets of Accra.
31:09 However, they are paving the way for a cleaner, quieter and more accessible urban future.
31:15 The future of urban transportation is electric and not just a dream.
31:20 It's the silent revolution of electric motorcycles changing the way we move through our cities one ride at a time.
31:27 This story was a collaboration with New Narratives and funding was provided by the Clean Air Fund.
31:34 For JOIN News, Michael Ashali.
31:40 Hello, Christmas Tress. For the National Science and Maths Quiz, Dr. Elsie Farkoffman has advised young girls in Ghana to venture into science and technology to break the dominance of men in those fields.
31:53 She was speaking at an event to mark the partnership between Girls Empowerment Group, Sky Girls and the Ghana Education Service to expand guidance and counseling services to girls in the country's second cycle schools.
32:06 More in the following report.
32:08 Sky Girls is a group of teenage girls with a vision to help empower fellow young women in Ghana with skills and ideas for richer career selection.
32:19 Some teenage girls share their experiences and the benefits of Sky Girls advocacy.
32:25 How I started my beadwork, I started when I was 13 in my previous school.
32:32 With the beadwork, it wasn't public, but Sky made it public for me through the magazines and their social media platforms.
32:40 And I got other job offers through Sky because people saw my artwork and I would want to recommend stuff for me to be able to sell to other people who would want it.
32:49 I got to join Sky Girls when I was going to SHS through my sister.
32:55 So when I joined Sky Girls, I didn't really know what shisha was because I see people smoke shisha and all they tell me is shisha is just a flavor.
33:07 So when I got into Sky Girls, one day we were having a group chat, then our Sky big sister was telling the group that,
33:15 "Oh, shisha contains this and this and this. It harms the system. It causes damage. It's like the weed and the cigarettes we smoke."
33:25 So that's when I got to know that shisha wasn't good.
33:29 Yaa Boatema is project manager of Sky Girls.
33:32 Sky is a community of teen girls just like you watching me.
33:37 It's a very great platform for you to develop your skills as a girl, build refusal skills, be more empowered and learn more about issues that matter to you.
33:48 This is a platform where you as a girl have your voice heard not only by fellow girls but by society as a whole.
33:56 So Sky is welcoming. Everybody is a Sky Girl so far as you're able to stay true to yourself, say yes to the things you like and no to the things you know.
34:05 National Science and Maths Quiz mistress, Dr. Elsie Ife-Kovman, received an award for showing leadership in the field of science,
34:13 a feat that encourages many girls in Ghana to reach for the top.
34:18 [Dr. Ife-Kovman speaking]
34:47 Sky Girls also announced its partnership with the Ghana Education Service and some secondary schools to expand support services to girls in Ghana's second cycle institutions.
35:02 And that's how we take a break and bring you Business Shortly.
35:08 [Music]
35:13 Good afternoon and welcome to the business segment. I'm joined here today with me Pius Kujubaka.
35:18 The Center for Regional Integration in Africa has made a strong case for a strategic capacity building for small and medium scale enterprises to support intra-African trade activities on the continent.
35:29 According to the executive director of the center, Professor Tilo, Africa must be deliberate in supporting the SME space through proper regulatory frameworks.
35:38 She was speaking at an SME conference.
35:43 Intra-African trade activities is roughly 17% compared to other regions globally.
35:49 This is according to the Center for Regional Integration in Africa.
35:53 According to the organization, this is a challenge facing African economic integration and development.
35:59 Professor Tilo said inclusivity of SMEs is key to address these issues.
36:05 These are stumbling blocks that already prohibit somebody the access to the resources required to trade as they would want and wish to.
36:17 So what we're here for really, through the Regional Integration Issues Forum, is, and by the way, I think some of you know what the RIF is meant to do.
36:31 It's simply a platform, a mechanism that brings us all together to really learn more about regional integration, to learn more about continental trade.
36:44 And this year, we have convened ourselves with partners.
36:52 You can't convene the RIF without partnership.
36:56 So it's not CREA alone. CREA established the RIF in partnership with the African Capacity Building Foundation in 2017.
37:04 Meanwhile, Chief of Staff at the African Continental Free Trade Area, Silva Ojako, said the Secretariat is pushing hard in ensuring robust trading activities among member states.
37:16 We've placed a strong emphasis on trade as an engine for economic development. It's one of the four pillars of our strategy that we're going to be working on over the next five years.
37:29 We are going to be providing targeted capacity building support to governments, policy makers, institutions, as well as other key stakeholders involved in implementing the AFCFTA.
37:42 Capacity building is essential for enabling African countries to effectively design, implement, as well as monitor policies that promote regional integration and facilitate trade.
37:55 As ACBF, we are seeking to enhance the capacities of our policy makers, our government institutions, to be able to develop and implement sound trade policies because we believe this is one of the challenges that we face.
38:09 The conference was brought together by 150 participants across the continent and it was in collaboration with the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration.
38:19 The event was under the theme "Breaking Business Barriers for AFCFTA Acceleration".
38:24 The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications is warning the public against giving their Ghana cards to people to use in the registration of their subscriber identity model.
38:38 Now, the CEO of the Chamber, Dr. Ken Ashigbe, says that mobile money transfers or fraudsters have devised new strategies to dupe the unsuspecting public by using the Ghana card of others to register SIM cards.
38:50 Speaking at a stakeholder forum in Cape Coast, Dr. Ashigbe indicated that mobile money fraud cases are on the rise but they are developing ways to deal with them.
38:59 There is more in this report.
39:03 The Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr. Ken Ashigbe, says the Momo fraudsters have resorted to using the Ghana cards of innocent victims to register new cards which they then use in the operations.
39:17 According to him, people must guard their Ghana cards zealously to reduce the incidence of Momo fraud.
39:24 So what are we doing? What we've done is that now the IGP has called a meeting together of all the telcos, all the banks, and then he's working on a plan, a concerted plan.
39:36 Because already, as the Chamber of Telecommunications, we have a platform called the LFCD, where if anybody defrauds you, anybody steals your device, and you report it, the telco in particular would investigate if they find it to be true.
39:52 They would block the person. We are now liaising with the cybercrime unit who reports to the person, the person who deals with the person.
39:59 We don't only do that. After blocking the person, they put it on the LCD platform, and then you are blocked.
40:05 So they'll block your SIM, they'll block your device as well, and now with the partnership with the IGP, those people, and because now we have the Ghana card, we now will be able to arrest.
40:15 But the unfortunate thing that we need to advise all the people is that now the fraudsters are doing is that because they know they need to get a Ghana card, they see people who are walking around, then they come to you, and then they come and give you some 10 CDs.
40:27 They use people's IDs to go and register these SIMs, and then they use them to do the fraud.
40:32 So please, we beg you, don't allow yourself, don't allow anybody to use your Ghana card to register any SIM card.
40:40 When you do that, you are putting yourself at risk.
40:43 Dr. Ash, we also spoke about how the increasing incidence of FiberCard has become a huge challenge to the telecoms company and the subscribers.
40:52 There's a particular situation where there's a company in Ntakra, they're making tiles called KEDA.
40:59 They've destroyed about 10 kilometers of fiber belonging to MTN, AT, and Vodafone.
41:07 The total cost of reinstating those 10 kilometers is more than 6 million CDs.
41:13 And the cost that all of them bore in even repairing to make sure that customers can get use of it, it's about 700,000 CDs.
41:21 And you see, so these things keep happening.
41:23 You have those who are doing roads, those who are doing drains, destroying it.
41:27 And then what then happens is that it's the customer that bears the brunt because once that is done, you'll not be able to make a call, you'll not be able to do anything else.
41:36 Elmina, the state police commander, Chief Superintendent, Ibrahim Bansa, narrated how his outfit has been dealing with the increasing cases of Momo fraud.
41:46 Some of the cases reported were like, I am a Momo agent at Elmina.
41:56 The suspect I brought to the police station came to do Momo transaction at my place.
42:06 He handed over to me a phone claiming to be a brother who want to speak to me on phone.
42:16 And during their conversation, the person on the phone may instruct the agent to enter a preferred code for further directives.
42:29 And when that is done, the monies are transferred into their account and later cashed out immediately.
42:36 In all, the above cases reported were duly investigated.
42:41 Those with evidence were prosecuted.
42:45 Other cases settled among the parties who are there are still under investigation.
42:50 Let me take this opportunity to advise all the Momo agents and the gathering here to be scrutinous in dealing with Momo transactions to help reduce Momo fraud within KEA municipality.
43:08 Quality assurance manager of Helios Starways, Michael Ejalkun, indicated how construction companies damage the cables of the telecom companies and this he says affect the services of the telecom companies.
43:25 And that's it for business. I am Pius Kujubaka. Marketplace is at 1pm.
43:34 Time now for sports and former Ghana Football Association presidential aspirant Neil Armstrong has advised George Efree to discontinue his quest to contest for the presidency in the upcoming elections.
43:47 George, who has been disqualified by the Elections Committee from vying for the position following his failure to provide the required number of signatures to support his candidacy, has gone to the Court of Arbitration for Sports to seek redress.
44:03 Neil, who also found himself in a similar situation over a decade ago, wants George to abandon his desire to head the FA as his chances of winning are slim.
44:14 It's part of the process of deepening the operation of democracy in our football space.
44:22 He himself is on record to have said that he respects the rules, he respects the laws, and where it is that he feels that there are grounds, and good grounds for him to pursue justice through the channels of the FA and go all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sports, he would go there.
44:38 So that's what I make of it. I mean, I went through it. In our time, you didn't go to the appeals committee.
44:43 When I stood in 2011, there was an arbitral panel. You go to arbitration, and whatever the arbitration panel decides, if you're still dissatisfied, you will continue on to the Court of Arbitration for Sports, which is like our court for last resort when it comes to football.
44:58 I decided, after going through the arbitration and still failing to make it through the nomination, that I just rested at that point.
45:07 I felt that going further wouldn't serve any useful purpose. You know why?
45:13 If my intent at the time, based upon the energy I spoke about earlier on from friends in football, was to become FA president, to lead our football in a direction that I believe would enhance or augment whatever it was that Mr. Nyantekji had achieved, and mind you, he had achieved – we were all part of it – he had achieved major and mega, and he was still growing.
45:33 I decided that rather than continue to pursue a legal process, let me rest my case.
45:39 Also, based on the fact, like I said earlier on, that after going through the nomination process, that was so difficult.
45:46 You know why? I just remembered. Some of the people who nominated me were Ghana coaches, the Coaches Association, schools and colleges, security services.
45:55 But they don't make up the larger bulk of the Congress. They didn't make up the larger bulk at the time. They still don't make up the bulk.
46:02 That is it for sports. APNES is World News.
46:07 Getting into showbiz. Well, the Ghana Creative Arts has been failed five different times by the current government, all in the quest of building them a studio.
46:22 Now, we've chronicled all the five different times. Now, the first of it was on the 27th of July in 2017, where the now deputy minister for tourism, art and culture actually promised the Ghanaian industry that there's going to be an ultra-modern studio being built for the creative arts.
46:45 And that is going to help the creative art industry to actually get much this done, as in every musician, when you are done with your music, you get it to be mastered.
46:57 The second one was in 2020, the NPP manifesto, where the government promised to establish large recording studio in Accra, Kumasi, Thakrade and Tamale.
47:09 And then the third happened to be on the 25th day of February, 2021, where the minister of tourism, art and culture, Awar Mohamed, mentioned the government had allocated 20 million US dollars for the construction of a film and music studio.
47:24 He said this when he met the appointment committee of parliament in his vetting. And then the fourth happened to be on June 2020.
47:33 The National Film Authority also announced that it had signed a landmark partnership agreement with Pixel Ray Studios LLC, which will lead to the construction of a full-serviced world-class film studio in West Africa.
47:48 And then the fifth was also in June 2020, the Deputy Minister for Tourism, Art and Culture, Marco Kwekwemante, said that the ministry was in talks with American film company, Tyre Perry Studios, to provide studio for musicians and all have failed.
48:04 Well, this is all time is going to allow us here on Showbiz. And Aisha, back to you to wrap up.
48:10 Thanks so much for watching. My name is Aisha Ibrahim. Welcome to myjournalline.com. There's more of the news and updates of all the developing stories.
48:20 Do enjoy your weekend.
48:24 [Music]