FOUR NABBED FOR THEFT (OCT 16, PAGE 15)

FOUR persons have been arrested by the Wa Police for allegedly breaking into the pharmacy of the Nadowli District Hospital and stealing assorted drugs and a desktop computer, all worth GH¢35,000.
The suspects are Fidelis Bainye, 33, Moses Abudu Suntaah, 26, both record keepers at the hospital, Stephen Kpenye, 40, a watchman, and Lamin Pouryilideoni, 36, who was described as an accomplice.
The Upper West Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Alex Bedie, who briefed the Daily Graphic, said the police received a report that the pharmacy of the hospital had been burgled on October 10, 2009.
He said the police quickly mounted an investigation into the matter and arrested the four.
He said it came out that Moses had once worked at the pharmacy and so he had a spare key to the place.
He said Moses allegedly planned with Fidelis to steal the drugs from the pharmacy and, therefore, about 3 a.m. on that day they broke into the pharmacy and made away with a number of drugs and a desktop computer.
ACP Bedie said further investigations by the police revealed that the watchman, Kpenye, was supposed to report to duty that day but he did not turn up, paving the way for Moses and Fidelis to have a leeway.
He said in a bid to throw dust into the eyes of the hospital authorities, Moses, who had carried the booty to his house at Kaleo, near Wa, for safekeeping set fire to the curtains in the pharmacy shop.
He said after his arrest, Moses sent a message to Fidelis about his arrest and asked him to go to his house and remove the stolen items to an unidentified location.
He added that Fidelis, with the assistance of Lamin, a nursing mother, quickly packed the drugs and the computer and hid them somewhere.
He said Fidelis and Lamin were subsequently arrested, while further investigations led to Stephen’s arrest.
Upon interrogation, ACP Bedie said, Fidelis and Moses admitted stealing the items, while Stephen claimed he had been indisposed on the night of the theft, hence his inability to report to work.
The Regional Police Commander said all four suspects had been placed in police custody pending further investigations.

DR SORY TOURS UPPER WEST (OCT 9, PAGE 20)

THE Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Elias Sory, has called on the Nurses and Midwives Council to as a matter of urgency, review the embargo on admission of community health nurses and their prevention from performing midwifery functions.
He said the policy as it stood now hindered effective healthcare delivery, especially in very remote areas.
Dr Sory said this when he was confronted with the difficulty under which health personnel, especially community health nurses operated, during a tour of some areas in the Upper West Region.
He stated that when decisions on the issue were made more flexible, they would help solve the problem of lack of midwives in some critical areas.
Reacting to concerns that some districts in the region lacked the required professionals to carry out certain specific functions such as midwifery and also to man particularly the various Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) centres, Dr Sory said that should not be the case.
He explained that community health nurses were trained by all the 10 regions and therefore there should not be any situation where some regions would be lacking such health professionals, necessitating the call for a critical look at the admission procedure into such institutions.
The tour which took Dr Sory and his team to Jirapa, Han, Ping, Nadowli and Kayiri, was organised by the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) in collaboration with the GHS to evaluate the concept of CHPS compound since its inception by the JICA in the region in 2006.
Dr Sory was accompanied by the Chief Director at the Ministry of Health (MOH), Madam Salamatu Abdul Salaam, the Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Alexis Nang Beifubah, the Director of Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Frank Nyonator and representatives from JICA.
“Admission of community health nurses must be based on where such nurses were supposed to work and not because a district is sponsoring them. In any case, these students are sponsored generally by the government and not the districts”, he stated.
Dr Sory said that had been the situation because the country over the years, failed to come out with a major policy decision on such issues, stressing “the government must take realistic measures on the issue by enacting a law”.
He stated that some of the laws of the country had been distorted because even after they had been used under military regimes, they were still being used currently”.
The director general advised district directors of the service to be assertive and strive to make an input when certain major decisions were to be taken.
He commended the JICA for its efforts to uplift healthcare delivery in the country.
Earlier, Dr Sory and his entourage called on the Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Mahmud Khalid and his deputy, Mr Cesar Kale where he stressed the need for practical measures to be instituted to nip in the bud the canker of alcohol abuse in the region.
He expressed regret that the literates who were supposed to conscientise the unfortunate illiterates, were rather the main people leading the fray.
For his part, the regional minister reiterated the call for doctors to undertake national service, saying “the housemanship is part of the medical school training and not national service”.
He said such a decision could be very beneficial to the Upper West since doctors would be posted under the scheme to work in the region.
Mr Khalid further appealed to the director general to strive in improving the number of doctors in the region.

POLICE NAB TWO SUSPECTS (PAGE 23, MIRROR, OCT 3)

From Chris Nunoo, Wa

THE Wa police have arrested two suspected armed robbers, Nayaa Aweriba, 35, and George Tofaha Suglo, 46, on the Wa-Jirapa road.
The suspects, who were riding a motorcycle, were arrested after a police patrol team intercepted their motorcycle at about 8 p.m. last Sunday.
The Upper West Regional Police Commander, ACP Alex Bedie, who briefed The Mirror, said when a search was conducted on the suspects a shotgun with seven cartridges and two jack knives were found.
He said when they were questioned they said they were galamsey operators at Dekope in Bole in the Northern Region.
ACP Bedie said Nayaa claimed he bought the gun from one Robert and that they were travelling to Kaleo in the Nadowli District of the region for a funeral where he was going to use the gun to fire musketry as a sign of respect to the departed.
Mr Bedie said their explanation did not convince the patrol team and were arrested.
He said the two suspects had since been detained while a search had been mounted for Robert.

MAN NABBED OVER FATHER'S DEATH (PAGE 29, MIRROR, OCT 3)

From Chris Nunoo, Wa

The Wa Police have arrested a man, Sumani Isaka Jnr, from Bugubelie near Tumu in the Sissala East district for allegedly shooting and killing his father.
The Police are also searching for three other suspects who allegedly teamed up with Isaka to inflict multiple cutlass wounds on one Bashiru Salifu, a suspected yam thief.
The Upper West Regional Police Commander, ACP Alex Bedie, told The Mirror that on September 13, 2009 the police in Tumu received a complaint from Isaka that his 45-year-old father, Sumani Isaka Snr, left the house for his farm and has since not returned.
He said Isaka claimed he followed up to the farm only to find out that his father had been murdered and that he suspected Salifu, who is also a farmer.
He said the police followed Isaka to the scene and the body was found with a deep wound in the left thigh suspected to have been caused by a gunshot.
Mr Bedie said upon inspection by the police it came out that the deceased was shot from close range and added that when the police further conducted a search in the area, they found Salifu with cutlass wounds all over his body lying unconscious in the bush.
He said a postmortem conducted on the deceased showed that he died of haemorrhage resulting from excessive bleeding from the thigh.
Mr Bedie said further investigations revealed that on that fateful day the deceased went to the farm only to realise that someone had gone to steal tubers of yam from his farm and he immediately suspected Salifu, who is alleged to be a well-known crop thief in the area.
He said the deceased who was not happy about what he discovered on his farm quickly went home and organised three others and Isaka, who armed themselves with cutlasses and a gun and went to the farm to look for Salifu.
He said when they met Salifu on the farm and questioned him about the loss of the yam, a brawl ensued and Salifu managed to overpower the deceased and held him onto the ground.
In the process, ACP Bedie said, the deceased asked Isaka to shoot at Salifu but Isaka missed and rather fired at his father in the thigh.
He said Salifu sensing danger got up from the deceased but the three others and Isaka pounced on Salifu and inflicted cutlass wounds on him.
Thinking that Salifu was dead, ACP Bedie said, the four dumped him in the bush and fled the scene with the then wounded Isaka Snr but he died on the way.
He said Isaka when interrogated denied shooting the father and blamed Salifu for doing that.
Mr Bedie said the body of the deceased had been deposited at the Wa hospital morgue while Salifu has been admitted at the Wa Regional Hospital for medical treatment under police guard.

DCE CALLS FOR CLOSER COLLABORATION (PAGE 16, SEPT 28)

THE District Chief Executive (DCE) for Lawra, Mr Samson Abu, has called for closer collaboration among the various departments, agencies and the assembly to keep the district on track in its development effort.
To this end, he has underscored the need for a regular interaction between the respective heads of institutions and the assembly in order to move as a united force.
Interacting with the Daily Graphic in Wa, the DCE said situations where some institutions did not participate fully or make any input into programmes of the assembly sometimes slowed or derailed development programmes.
He, therefore, called for a change of attitude among the various stakeholders in the district.
“Let us move in unison as we all have the intention to reduce the poverty level of our people”, he stressed and said the Government was working assiduously to better the lives of all Ghanaians.
Mr Samson Abu said revenue mobilisation, was one of the priorities of the assembly.
He said the overdependence on the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) had not augured well for many assemblies and, therefore, there was the need to raise more revenue internally to carry out development projects.
Mr Abu hinted that the assembly would recruit more people under the youth employment programme as revenue collectors.
“We also want to strengthen the area and town councils by getting the right people to do the monitoring at these levels. At the first point of call from the grass roots, we hope to use the area and town councils to rope in more revenue” he explained.
He added that there were plans to put up a permanent office complex to house the assembly because where it currently operated belonged to the controller and accountant general’s department
In addition, the DCE said, the assembly, with assistance from the District Development Fund (DDF), would also construct a 16-room self- contained apartment to house nurses who would be posted to the district.
That, he said, was part of efforts by the assembly to entice and maintain health personnel posted to the district.

STOP DEMONISING POLITICAL OPPONENTS ...Says Amuah (SEPT 19, PAGE 14)

A Social worker, Mr Donald Amuah, has called on politicians to refrain from demonising political traditions and ideologies of their political opponents.
This, he said, would bring much harmony among the various political parties rather than polarising them.
"We are in a country where a group of people see everything Dr Kwame Nkrumah did as bad, while other groups also see the works of Dr Abrefa Busia to be the same", Mr Amuah lamented, and added that when such things existed, we would always have conflicts on our hands.
Speaking on the topic: "Conflict prevention, resolution and transformation — the role of the youth in northern Ghana," Mr Amuah expressed concern about the signals the political leaders were sending to the next generation with such postures.
He attributed many of the conflicts scattered around the country to some of these developments, saying, "In a country where we do not accept our heroes and where people still lament that successive governments have not treated them well, the problem seeps down to the ordinary people and into institutions, which usually leads to conflicts".
Mr Amuah was addressing selected women's groups at a two-day workshop on conflict resolution in Wa.
It was organised by the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province Pastoral Conference (TEPPCON), with support from the Konrad Adenaur Foundation.
Commenting on the recent debate over the country's educational system, Mr Amuah expressed regret that after 50 years of independence, "There are still unresolved conflicts over our educational system.”
He, therefore, stressed the need for the Government to involve all stakeholders, including parents and come out with clear structures on the country's educational system.
He, therefore, called on Ghanaians to be bold and hold political leaders accountable, pointing out that we must do away with situations where political leaders imposed decisions on the people.
He expressed the hope that an opportunity would be created for the youth by way of national conferences for them to interact very often, so that they come to appreciate common natural values.
This, Mr Amuah said, would concientise the country's youth to refrain from being coerced into conflict or whipping up sentiments that would lead to conflicts.

STOP DEMONISING POLITICAL OPPONENTS ...Says Amuah (SEPT 19, PAGE 14)

A Social worker, Mr Donald Amuah, has called on politicians to refrain from demonising political traditions and ideologies of their political opponents.
This, he said, would bring much harmony among the various political parties rather than polarising them.
"We are in a country where a group of people see everything Dr Kwame Nkrumah did as bad, while other groups also see the works of Dr Abrefa Busia to be the same", Mr Amuah lamented, and added that when such things existed, we would always have conflicts on our hands.
Speaking on the topic: "Conflict prevention, resolution and transformation — the role of the youth in northern Ghana," Mr Amuah expressed concern about the signals the political leaders were sending to the next generation with such postures.
He attributed many of the conflicts scattered around the country to some of these developments, saying, "In a country where we do not accept our heroes and where people still lament that successive governments have not treated them well, the problem seeps down to the ordinary people and into institutions, which usually leads to conflicts".
Mr Amuah was addressing selected women's groups at a two-day workshop on conflict resolution in Wa.
It was organised by the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province Pastoral Conference (TEPPCON), with support from the Konrad Adenaur Foundation.
Commenting on the recent debate over the country's educational system, Mr Amuah expressed regret that after 50 years of independence, "There are still unresolved conflicts over our educational system.”
He, therefore, stressed the need for the Government to involve all stakeholders, including parents and come out with clear structures on the country's educational system.
He, therefore, called on Ghanaians to be bold and hold political leaders accountable, pointing out that we must do away with situations where political leaders imposed decisions on the people.
He expressed the hope that an opportunity would be created for the youth by way of national conferences for them to interact very often, so that they come to appreciate common natural values.
This, Mr Amuah said, would concientise the country's youth to refrain from being coerced into conflict or whipping up sentiments that would lead to conflicts.