Don’t stay out of school during menstrual periods, girls urged
Bomso (Ash)� Madam Faustina Obeng, Sekyere East Girl Child Coordinator of the Ghana education Service (GES), has called on teenage girls not to use their monthly menstrual periods as an excuse to stay out of school.
She said girls should not see menstruation as a sin but rather, see it as a natural phenomenon and go about their normal duties during that period.
What is important, she said, was for them to use appropriate sanitary pads and manage their menstruation safely and in a hygienic manner.
Madam Obeng, was speaking at a community durbar held at Bomso in the Sekyere East District to commemorate the global menstrual hygiene day.
The event was organized by Optimal Change Partnership (OCP) to highlight the need for community members to support adolescent girls, both in school and rural communities during their menstrual cycle.
The occasion was also used to distribute free menstrual sanitary pads to the young girls present at the durbar.
Mrs Victoria Afriyie Quarcoo, District Public Health Nurse, urged girls to always wash their hands properly with soap after handling their menstrual pads and dispose the pads in safe and hygienic manner.
Mr Cyril Adajawah, Operations Manager of OCP, urged the girls to seek proper guidance and counselling from their parents, teachers and other respectable persons in their communities when they encountered difficulties during their menstrual periods.
He said the durbar was to create awareness among community members to support their girls to manage and handle their menstrual cycles properly and in safe and hygienic manner.
Source: Ghana News Agency
Don’t stay out of school during menstrual periods, girls urged
Bomso (Ash)� Madam Faustina Obeng, Sekyere East Girl Child Coordinator of the Ghana education Service (GES), has called on teenage girls not to use their monthly menstrual periods as an excuse to stay out of school.
She said girls should not see menstruation as a sin but rather, see it as a natural phenomenon and go about their normal duties during that period.
What is important, she said, was for them to use appropriate sanitary pads and manage their menstruation safely and in a hygienic manner.
Madam Obeng, was speaking at a community durbar held at Bomso in the Sekyere East District to commemorate the global menstrual hygiene day.
The event was organized by Optimal Change Partnership (OCP) to highlight the need for community members to support adolescent girls, both in school and rural communities during their menstrual cycle.
The occasion was also used to distribute free menstrual sanitary pads to the young girls present at the durbar.
Mrs Victoria Afriyie Quarcoo, District Public Health Nurse, urged girls to always wash their hands properly with soap after handling their menstrual pads and dispose the pads in safe and hygienic manner.
Mr Cyril Adajawah, Operations Manager of OCP, urged the girls to seek proper guidance and counselling from their parents, teachers and other respectable persons in their communities when they encountered difficulties during their menstrual periods.
He said the durbar was to create awareness among community members to support their girls to manage and handle their menstrual cycles properly and in safe and hygienic manner.
Source: Ghana News Agency
Government ready to sanction mobile operators – Minister
Accra- Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister of Communications, has warned that mobile network operators who failed to connect to the Common Platform for Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring after the expiry of the June 11 deadline, would be sanctioned.
She said government would not accept any excuses or reasons from the mobile network operators after the June 11, 2018 deadline, for failure to connect to the Platform.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful gave the warning after delivering a statement in Parliament in response to summons by the Speaker of Parliament.
She appeared before Parliament to brief the House on the Kelni-GVG deal signed in December 2017. The five-year 89 million-dollar contract may be renewed subject to stated conditions being fulfilled.
The Kelni-GVG contract has been questioned by some critics who say the deal seems to have been tainted with some underhand dealings.
President of Imani, Franklin Cudjoe, has been one of the leading critics in the Kelni-GVG contract, who has constantly condemned the revenue assurance deal, which is meant to monitor revenue in the telecom industry.
Although the Government insists the deal saves the country 1.1 million dollars a month, Mr Cudjoe wanted to know why the state had been paying the firm 1.5 million dollars per month since January for no work done, adding that the deal is needless and a rip-off, which ought to be terminated.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful also stated that the Government is determined to follow through with the implementation of the Common Platform for Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring, Revenue Assurance, Mobile Money Monitoring and Fraud Management.
The Ministry had already sent notices to the network operators and from that time they had seven days to seek legal redress if they disagree, she said.
She explained that after 30 days of litigation the sanctions to be imposed would be five per cent of the last declared gross revenue.
The Minister said the Government had nothing to hide and that they were prepared to subject themselves to parliamentary oversight.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said though government intended to have excellent relationship the mobile network operators, it did not want to be taken for granted or be disrespected.
She explained that the National Communications Authority (NCA) currently did not have the capability of acquiring, maintaining and sustaining the Common Platform, however it may be capable of acquiring this expertise over time.
She said for now Kelni-GVG had been contracted to build, operate and maintain the Common Platform to provide knowledge and technology transfer to the people.
In the current agreement the Platform is housed on the premises of the NCA, which was a far cry from the previous situation when this was done on the blindside of the NCA, and only given a report at the end of the month, she said.
She said Ghana was short-changed in the previous arrangement, adding that the country had learnt its lessons and had moved on.
Source: Ghana News Agency
Woman who beats daughter to death being held for murder
Accra- An unemployed woman who allegedly beat her eight year old daughter to death with a cane and buried her at the sea shore near the Lavender Hill in Accra has made her second appearance at the Laterbiokoshie District Court.
Larteley Mensah, 32, whose plea has not been taken, is facing a charge of murder.
Two others namely Adorkor and Ebenezer Annor who allegedly assisted Larteley to bury the victim are on the run.
The two accomplices have been charged with hindrance of inquest.
When sitting resumed on Thursday, Larteley confirmed to the court that her relations were trying to seek bail for her at the High Court.
Ms Linda Amissah, the magistrate, remanded Larteley into Police custody to reappear on July 5.
The case as presented before the court by Prosecution led by Sergeant Eric Pobee earlier are that on April 13, this year, the Korle-Bu Police Command had information from an anonymous caller that Larteley had beaten her eight year-old daughter Tenee Sani to death.
Prosecution said Larteley has solicited the help of one Adorkor and Ebenezer Annor and they had buried the deceased at the sea shore near Lavender Hill, Korle Gonno.
Police investigation led to the arrest of Larteley and in her caution statement she admitted the offence and mentioned Adorkor and Ebenezer Mensah as those who assisted her to bury the deceased.
Prosecution said effort were underway to apprehend Larteley’s accomplices.
Source: Ghana News Agency
Afoko trial – Tenth Prosecution witness ends his testimony
Accra� The tenth prosecution witness in the case involving Gregory Afoko, accused of murdering the former Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has testified before the trial Court.
Mr Peter Quartey Papafio, giving his evidence in chief at an Accra Circuit Court said that he resides at Madina, and has been a Forensic toxicologist and chemist with the Ghana Standards Authority, for the past 12 years.
He said his duties at the GSA are to perform post-mortem samples for the pathologist, receive and sample suspected narcotics from the security services.
He also writes analytical reports on analysis performed and also tender exhibits and reports at the law courts.
He said on the morning of May 28, 2015, he received some samples/exhibits from the CID headquarters from an investigator named Detective Chief Inspector Augustus Nkrumah.
The exhibits were sealed with a Ghana Police Service seal and he was to perform examination from the exhibits and issue out reports based on the findings.
He said after the samples were received he went ahead and gave a full description of what was submitted. There were eight separate exhibits which the analyst designated as exhibits A to H. After they were designated he opened each of them to find out what they were and then he performed the analysis to determine their content and purpose.
The witness said after the inspection and the analysis he issued out a report on the findings and returned the report back to the investigator.
The original report signed by the witness and approved by the head of department, Madam Janet B Aidoo was tendered in as evidence, without objection.
The letterhead he said was also signed by the Director of testing, Charles Amoako for the Executive Director George Crentsil now retired.
The report was addressed to the Superintendent in charge of the Homicide Division, with a file number 107sf5/ 2015. Eight of the assorted items for identification, date of analysis May 29, and the date of writing the report was June 1
He said the items included one gallon, a carpet of a car seat, a pair of shoes and dress Mr Adams was purported to have been wearing, Mr Adams car seat sample, back of Mr Adams car seat, Voltic bottle in a transparent rubber containing whitish substance in it, track suit belonging to Afoko, and a plastic cap.
Mr Papafio said after receiving the exhibits he described what was written on each exhibit by the police, opened each of them to analyse what was contained in each, adding that the method used for the analysis was chemical and titrimetric.
He told the court the report on the gallon confirmed to be sulphuric acid with a concentration of 16.89 molar ie.90 to 95% pure and very corrosive and harmful when it comes in contact with the body.
Due to its corrosive nature it can cause death upon contact.
The report on the other items he said confirmed to contain residues of sulphuric acid, while that of the track suit confirmed to contain traces of sulphuric acid.
The witness said the remarks on the report stated that sulphuric acid with the above concentration was detected in the liquid substance in the gallon.
It is very corrosive and causes severe injury upon contact with the skin. All the exhibits had residues of sulphuric acid and traced to the content.
The deterioration of the pair of the shoes and clothing he added were linked to the action of the corrosive nature of concentrated sulphuric acid. The reserved sample was sealed and handed over to the case officer, he said.
The content of the gallon was a liquid substance with a brownish black colour.
During cross examination the witness said the level of the content of the 4.5 litre gallon was about 5 ml, less than a quarter full.
He said the car mat handed over to him was a rubber mat, and in handling the substance he protected his hands by wearing a disposable latex gloves, adding that it had also not deteriorated but had stains on them.
Mr Osafo Boabeng asked whether he examined the Voltic bottle and he answered in the affirmative, saying it had also not suffered any corrosion, but there were stains on it.
In relation to the track suit he told the court that he examined the texture of it, it was a nylon polyester track suit, and the substance, sulphuric acid cannot damage that type of track suit, and it would only cause stains for a certain period, but after a while it would burn it.
Counsel for the accused asserted that Afoko was a motor rider, and the burns were causes as a result of contact with exhaust of the motor, but the witness responded that it was highly improbable for the exhaust to cause those burns
Answering questions on the plastic cup he said the cup was empty at the time it was handed over to him on May 28, 2015, but he can recall the date when the samples were sealed by the police.
With his final remarks, Mr Papafio told the court that his terms of reference for the test was to identify the substance in the gallon and identify the substance in all the other exhibits and see if they can cause injury or be harmful when it comes into contact with a person.
When asked why he didn’t state his margin of errors on his report he said it was an identification test, so there is no need to identify the margins of error, and that can only be determined in the gallon, because of quantification.
The counsel ended his cross examination. The court then discharged the witness and set June 11 for prosecution to present its next witness.
At the previous sitting the ninth prosecution witness was discharged.
The prosecution has so far called 10 witnesses including Hajia Adams, Madam Issaka, Quinn, Taufic, Dominic, Awafo, Thomas, Benjamin, James, and Peter. They intend to call five more witnesses.
Afoko, a farmer, is alleged to have killed Mr Mahama on May 20, 2015, and he is being held on the charges of conspiracy to commit crime to wit murder and murder.
He has pleaded not guilty before the Court, which is also composed of a seven-member jury.
It was alleged that Afoko carried out the act with Alandgi Asabke, who is on the run.
Source: Ghana News Agency
