Day: February 4, 2022

Kumasi, Feb.4, GNA – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has rejected Baba Yara and Accra Sports Stadia for Ghana’s 2022 World Cup playoffs first leg match against the Super Eagles of Nigeria, on March 23rd, this year.

          CAF in a statement released on Wednesday, February 02, 2022, stated that the Baba Yara Stadium was not among the venues submitted by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for the playoff encounter, while Accra Sports Stadium is unavailable due to the current state of the stadium.

           December 24th 2021, was the deadline set by CAF for the participating national associations to select and communicate to CAF their preferred venue for the playoff rounds of the FIFA world cup 2022 African qualifiers.

                  On the 23rd of December 2021, GFA informed CAF that Cape Coast Stadium was the venue selected for the first leg playoff round between the Black Stars and the Super Eagles of Nigeria.   

                The National Sports Authority (NSA) in a letter to the GFA had ruled out the use of the Cape Coast Stadium for the first leg playoff since it would be unavailable by the time of the game.

     According to the NSA, the Cape Coast Stadium will be used for the celebration of this year’s Independence Day anniversary on March 06, and it would not be available for the Ghana-Nigeria world cup qualifying match.

          This decision by the NSA forced the GFA to write back to the CAF for a change of the venue for the first leg of the match, but CAF has rejected the plea.

    The Black Stars are set to host Nigeria in Ghana on March 23, for the first encounter before the second leg comes off in Abuja on March 29.

          Information gathered by GNA sports indicates that the match would be played at the original venue at Cape Coast.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Former Ghana midfielder, Sulley Ali Muntari has opened up on his decision to join Ghana Premier League side, Hearts of Oak.

The former Liberty Professionals middle man signed a one year deal with the Phobians ahead of the second round of the 2021/22 season.

Speaking for the first time after joining the reigning champions, the 2010 Champions League winner revealed that his son inspired him to join the club.

“My son really pushed me to play because he said he wants to see me play again,” he said.

“What made it easy too was the fact that any time I visited Ghana I always trained with the team and I felt at home already so choosing Hearts of Oak was very easy.

“The ambition in Hearts is what I like because it is obvious, they are ambitious,” he added.

Muntari will be available to feature against Great Olympics in the Mantse Derby on Sunday in the matchday 16 games at the Accra Sports Stadium.

Hearts of Oak will be counting of the former AC Milan midfielder’s experience after starting the campaign on a poor note.

Source: Modern Ghana

Cape Coast, Feb. 04, GNA – The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has launched the Government of Ghana Staff and Travel Card (e-travel card), designed to promote transparency and accountability in the management of funds during travels by public officials.

The card will replace all manual systems of managing imprests in the public service in a bid to promote transparency and accountability and make it easy for the cashless disbursement of travel and other related funds by government and all other public officials. 

All government office employees will receive a personalised card, which will enable their travel expenditures to be tracked and monitored as part of the implementation process. 

The new platform comes on the back of several digitalisation initiatives undertaken by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) including the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System and the Electronic Payslip system. 

The Vice President launched the card at the end of the three-day annual conference of CAGD held in Cape Coast on the theme: “The Role of CAGD in Advancing the Digitalisation Agenda of Ghana.”

Launching the card, Dr Bawumia observed that the manual system currently in place provided an avenue for some public officials to engage in overspending and fraudulent activities with impunity when they embarked on official travels. 

He said the e-travel card would, therefore, enable the CAGD to “strengthen monitoring and control of budgetary allocations for official travels to avoid overspending”.

“It will eliminate risks with cash transactions for official travels and cash disbursements and eliminate the misapplication of funds, over expenditures and fraud associated with imprests,” he added.  

The Vice President observed that the world was increasingly tilting towards cashless economies and systems and urged the affected public to embrace the new platform. 

“It is important that we move toward e-travel cards to make sure that we can engage in transactions freely when we travel,” Dr Bawumia stressed. 

He commended the Ministry of Finance and the CAGD for their efforts in keeping the digitalisation agenda of government alive. 

The Vice President appealed to the public to do their maximum best they could to position the country in a better situation, adding the everyone had a crucial role to play. 

“Let us maintain at all times, quality corporate attitudes, transparency, professionalism and patriotism in the discharge of our duties,” he added. 

For his part, the Controller and Accountant General, Mr Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem intimated that the introduction of the e-travel card was in line with the mandate of his outfit to protect public funds. 

He said the card was intended to “operationalise provisions in the public financial management act (act 921) and the regulations relating to imprest management.”

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, Feb. 03, GNA – The University of Cape Coast (UCC) is likely to shutdown next week after 21 days of non-academic activity due to the industrial action by the UniversityTeachers Association of Ghana (UTAG).

This is in accordance with the Acts and Statutes governing the University, which states that, the governing council shall close down the University after 21 days of non-academic activity.

Lecturers in public universities in the country have been on strike since January 10, this year, over what UTAG calls “worsening” conditions of service.

Professor Johnson Nyarko Boampong, Vice Chancellor, UCC, earlier this week, expressed fear the University might shutdown over non-academic activities if the situation was not addressed.

Checks by the Ghana News Agency indicate that some crunch meetings are ongoing at the University on the way forward [a possible shutdown.]

Other public universities without the ’21-day’ rule are not obliged to shutdown.

Their academic boards can, however, take that decision for economic or administrative purposes.

UTAG members on all public university campuses are on strike to force the Government to restore the conditions of service agreed upon in 2012.

The 2012 conditions of service pegged the Basic plus Market Premium of a lecturer at $2,084.42.

UTAG has complained that the current arrangement has reduced its members’ basic premiums to $997.84.

There is public outcry that the strike, which is in its third week, could lead to the shutdown of all public universities.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, Feb.4 , GNA – Professor James Mensah, Head of the Department of Surgery at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), has advocated the training of more urologists, anesthetics, and nurses to manage the increasing cancer cases in the country.

He said presently Ghana has only 46 qualified urologists to attend to cancer cases across the country, which made it impossible to treat more cancers and disorders that affected the urinary system on time.

Urologists are medical doctors who specialise in conditions that affect the kidney, bladder, urinary tract and reproductive system in men, women, and children.

Prof Mensah told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Accra that it was urgent now for Ghana to train the next generation of urologists locally to enable them to relate to the local cases.

“When more urologists are trained in the country, they are able to solve local problems with local resources and make treatment affordable to all,” he said.

“The Surgical Unit at the KBTH has exceeded its capacity, neuron surgery is one of our biggest challenges, we have too many patients, we must expand the theaters and develop manpower to attend to more cases,” Prof. Mensah said.

He said eating balanced diets, exercising, reducing intake of read meat, saturated fats, alcohol, and tobacco could reduce one’s risk of developing cancers.

World Cancer Day is celebrated across the globe on February 4 each year to create awareness, inspire change and reduce the global impact of cancer.

The observation of the Day is to reduce misconceptions surrounding cancer and the prejudices associated with it.

It also offers a chance to make an impact in the betterment of the life of cancer patients and survivors.

The theme for this year’s celebration, “Close the Care Gap” seeks to motivate reform and inspire action, even after the Day.

Cancer is a disease caused when cells divide uncontrollably and spread into surrounding tissues in the body.

It develops when the body’s normal control mechanism stops working and old cells grow out of control forming new and abnormal cells.

The Non-Communicable Disease (NCDs) Unit of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the last three years recorded 15,822 cases of prostate cancers, 6,430 breast cancer cases and 2,642 cases of cervical cancers.

The most common case types of cancers recorded in Ghana are prostate cancers, childhood cancers, breast cancers, kidney cancers, cervical cancers, liver, lung, vaginal and vulvar cancers, ovarian cancers, among others.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, Feb.4, GNA – The 33rd African Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament, after witnessing an exciting journey so far, will see the Lions of Teranga, Senegal come up against eight times champions, the Pharaohs of Egypt in the finals on Sunday, February 6, at the Olembe Stadium, in Younde, Cameroon.

Mane’s Senegal, thrashed Burkina Faso by 3-1 in the semi-final stage of the competition to book their spot in the finals for the second consecutive time, while host nation, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon were also kicked out by Salah’s Egypt in a decisive penalty shootout.

The finals of the 2021 AFCON would feature two of Liverpool’s top strikers, Sadio Mane and Mohammed Salah, each battling for their first AFCON trophy.

The two players have contributed to their team’s success with Sadio Mane scoring three goals for Senegal and providing two assists. Egypt’s Mohammed Salah also has two goals to his credit.

Senegal after eliminating Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea and Burkina Faso, would come into this game hoping to grab their first AFCON trophy having been defeated on two different occasions, losing to Cameroon in 2002 and to Algeria in 2019.

Coach Aliou Cisse, having the likes of Skipper Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy, Sadio Mane, Idrissa Gana and the likes, would be hoping to win their first ever AFCON trophy after bottling their chances in the previous years.

The Pharaohs of Egypt, regarded as the most successful African country and seven times winners of the tournament, would come into this final hoping to secure their eighth AFCON trophy after they last won it in 2010.

Salah’s Egypt in their journey to the finals eliminated Cote D’ Ivoire, Morocco and Cameroon and would be hoping to conquer Mane’s Senegal to be crowned champions of the 33rd AFCON tournament.

The two sides after Sunday’s final would face each other once more in the 2022 World Cup Qualifier Playoffs.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Accra, Feb. 4, GNA – The national para-taekwondo team won two gold medals and a bronze medal at the just ended fifth Africa G4 Para Taekwondo Championship hosted in Niger’s capital Niamey.

Ghana was represented at the championship by a three-member team made up of two females and a male athlete.

Emmanuel Kofi Turkson, the only male athlete won the gold medal in the male K44 –70kg division, while Patricia Kyeremaa one of the female athletes also won the gold medal in the female K44 65kg division and Adizatu Shaban, the remaining female athlete; won a bronze medal in the female K44 65kg.

After the competition, Ghana finished third on the medal table and was awarded the third best team trophy.

George Ablometi, the Head Coach of Team Ghana, was also awarded the trophy for Best male Coach.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Borussia Dortmund assistant coach, Otto Addo has explained why it will be difficult for him to quit his job with the German club for the Black Stars job.

Addo, who is a former Ghana international has been strongly linked to the vacant job following the sacking of Milovan Rajevac after Ghana’s 2021 Africa Cup of Nations [AFCON] in Cameroon.

The leadership of the Ghana Football Association [GFA] led by Kurt Okraku, together with Bernhard Lippert, who is the technical director of the FA and Tony Baffoe, a former Ghana captain flew to Germany to hold talks with Addo over the job.

As reported by this portal, Addo has agreed to accept the job on the interim but the Ghana FA must first negotiate with Dortmund before he is released for the job.

Explaining his decision not to accept the national team on a full-time basis during the meeting, Addo reiterated that the consistent sacking of coaches who manage the national team is worrying does not make the national team attractive.

Otto Addo is expected to be in the dugout when Ghana take on Nigeria in the 2022 World Cup playoff in March. The Black Stars will host the Super Eagles before travelling to Abuja for the return encounter.

He will be assisted by Ibrahim Tanko and Maxwell Konadu.

Source: Modern Ghana