Toyota Ghana tops 2009 edition of Ghana Club 100

Toyota Ghana Company Limited (TGCL), a leading automobile dealer, has been adjudged the overall best company for the 2009 Edition of the Ghana Club 100 Awards in Accra on Tuesday. Nine other companies that made it to the best 10 category include Auto Plaza Limited, Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited, Ecobank Ghana Limited, UT Financial Services and Dan Adams Pharmaceuticals Limited. The rest were The Trust Bank Ghana Limited, Scancom Limited, All-Ship Logistics and Amalgamated Bank Ghana Limited.

"The Ghana Club 100 Awards" instituted in 1998, is an annual event to celebrate the top one hundred (100) companies in various sectors of the country's economy.

The Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) organised the event on the theme: "Enhancing Partnerships between Domestic and Foreign Investors for Sustained Economic Development". This year's awards, which were ranked, based on three factors of the competing companies, such as size, return on equity and growth was unique because rural banks put up a strong showing, sweeping a substantial amount of the awards.

Mr Takahiko Takabayashi, Managing Director of TGCL received the award on behalf of the company and promised to continue to do more to ensure customer satisfaction, which he said, is a core objective of the company. Ms Hanna Tetteh, Minister of Trade and Industry urged companies to continue to focus on what they do and even do it better to enable them to grow. Ms Tetteh said government was aware of the problems confronting the business environment assuring that it would continue to implement reforms to improve the sector. She appealed to the private sector to embrace and sustain the Ghana Club 100 Awards, calling on members to impress on other private firms to join it.

She also congratulated the GIPC for maintaining the momentum in the annual event. Mr Ishmael Yamson, Board Chairman of the GIPC observed that Ghana was experiencing interesting times; oil discovery and its attendant benefits among others, adding that the revenue from the sector should be used to create jobs

Mr Yamson called on the award winners to fashion out measures to ensure that they continued to be amongst winners in subsequent years. Mr George Aboagye, Chief Executive Officer of GIPC congratulated all companies that have participated in the event since its inception in 1998.

Mr Aboagye reiterated the importance of the private sector to the country's economic growth and realization of the government's Better Ghana Agenda, adding GIPC would continue to facilitate its improvement. He announced that GIPC would hold interactive meetings with corporate organizations on their perceptions about the awards and how to improve upon it.
Source: GNA

Training programme for Police personnel begins

A three-day training programme for 45 police personnel on international policing, marine law, human rights and how to combat criminal syndicates in the oil find zone opened at Takoradi on Tuesday.

Opening the training programme, Alhaji Hamidu Mahama, Western Regional Police Commander, said the programme was the first in a series being organized by the Regional Police to equip policemen to handle criminals when the drilling of the country's oil begins in the last quarter of the year. He said majority of policemen in the region would benefit from the training programme.

Alhaji Mahama, who is a Deputy Commissioner of Police, said those, who would be trained would form the nucleus of a special taskforce to patrol the oilfields with the Ghana Navy and other security agencies. He said the taskforce would be adequately equipped with the necessary logistics and equipment to ensure effective and efficient policing. The Regional Command would also establish police stations at Half Assini and Aiyinase to provide maximum security to oil installations and the entire citizenry. Alhaji Mahama said the Regional Police Command was gearing up to deal ruthlessly and swiftly with miscreants that might disturb the peace and harmony in the region.

He said in this regard, the Regional Police Command was re-strategizing, upgrading and equipping police personnel to meet international standard of policing.
Source : GNA

MTN's George Andah moves to Bharti Airtel (Zain)

Mr George Andah, the multi-award winning Chief Marketing Officer for Ghana's leading telecoms operator, MTN (Ghana), is moving to Bharti Airtel, owners of Zain Telecommunications Limited.

George Andah who was formally at Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited was last year awarded Marketing Man of the Year, along several other awards he has picked up for his marketing acumen.

He has also been credited as having played crucial roles in MTN Ghana's growth and huge success as a market leader in Ghana.

His move could be part of Bharti Airtel’s plan to capture the Ghanaian Market and also make it a leading brand as he has done with MTN and Guinness Ghana Limited.

Andah attained his first degree in Bsc Biochemistry at the Kwame Nkrumah Science and Technology..

He is also an old Student of Achimota College.


Source: Joy News

Transition Bill is to end acrimony - IDEG

Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, Executive Director of Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), has said the Presidential Transitional Bill was to end acrimony that had characterised transitions.

"Transition is not about handing over presidential baton from an out-going regime to an in-coming regime; it has a broader and greater impact on socio-economic progress of the nation and generates uncertainty among District Chief Executives, government appointees in the assemblies.

"Insecurity of heads of boards and institutions creates loss of managerial time, anxiety among public and civil servants.the list is endless, the disjointed way of handling Transition in the Fourth Republic is destructive. The Transition Bill is an attempt to deal with the problem...," Dr Akwetey said.

Dr Akwetey was speaking at Akosombo at the weekend at the project launch and methodology workshop on the UNDP 2010 National Human Development Report (NHDR) for researchers, media practitioners, political economists, security experts and gender advocates. The report on the general theme: "Democratic Political Transition and Human Development," focuses on seven main thematic clusters. These state machinery, governance institutions and security establishment, the economy, social development and national cohesion, public and private corporate sector, general human development and theoretical and analytical framework.

The Presidential Transition Bill 2008 was launched by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Ghana Political Parties Programme (GPPP) to end polarisation and acrimony that has greeted transition in the Fourth Republic.

The Bill is aims to make smooth transition from one government to the other and institutionalising a multi-partisan framework and ground rules and regulations to govern and guide transitions. Dr Akwetey said transitions should be viewed in a broader perspective affecting the social life of all Ghanaians irrespective of political persuasion.

He said the lack of a governance political transitional structure had over the years contributed to the increasing rate of corruption among public officials.

Speaking on the 2010 UNDP Report, Dr Kamil Kamaluddeen, UNDP Country Director, said the 20th anniversary edition of the HDR would examine decades of HD data trends, refine the original HD Index with new databases and methodologies and introduce new measures adjusting the Index to reflect gender disparities and other internal national inequalities.

He said the 2010 HDR also featured the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), which was developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP support. This new index is designed to provide a fuller and more accurate picture of acute poverty on the household level than traditional "dollar-a-day" formulas. Dr Kamaluddeen said since 1990 the HDR had published the human development index (HDI) which looked beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being.

He said the HDI provided a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity (PPP) income). Dr Kamaluddeen said HDI also provided a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.

The report would seek to give a coherent and cogent expression to concerns about the impact of democratic political transition on contemporary human development programmes and bring to the fore the need for radical changes for institutionalization of structures to handle the problem adequately.

Source: GNA

International Literacy Day celebrations commemorated with a National symposium and exhibition

The 2010 International Literacy Day Celebration has being commemorated with a Grand National Symposium and Exhibition. The program which was put together by the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry of Education brought together key stakeholders such as Prof. Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, Director, Institute of Continuing Education and Distance Learning, University of Ghana, Rev. Dr. Fred Deegbe, General Secretary, Christian Council of Ghana and Mrs. Gifty Baka, a Program Manager of Action Aid, Ghana who presented papers on the theme of the celebration “Functional Literacy – A Key to Job Creation and Poverty Reduction” and gave a profound insight into what Functional Literacy can do to create jobs and reduce poverty.

Speaking at the symposium in Accra last week, the Minister of Education Alex Tettey-Enyo said his ministry Ministry will support the establishment of a computer literacy and ICT Centers in the districts for the training of graduates of the NFLP as part of its post-literacy Program in order to open up job opportunities for the productive youth and especially women and girls seeking ways of creating wealth to improve their socio-economic conditions. This is in view of the fact that computer literacy itself provides thousands of job opportunities and is also a caveat for poverty reduction. “This era of information technology, literacy has gone beyond reading, writing and numeracy to include the use of ICT to identify sources of information in the global information super highway, the internet”.

“Am happy that plans are far advanced for the commencement of the NFED Vocational English Literacy Project in dress making and hairdressing which is expected to provide a building bridge for the professional development of learners in their requisite trades. If it proves successful, which I know it will, more trades such as masonry, carpentry, auto mechanics, joinery will be added” he said.

Mr. Tettey-Enyo said “it was virtually impossible for them to confidently lead the crusade to sweep illiteracy out of dear country and wish to confidently affirm that m, in order to construct a smooth road for our socio-economic development, it is imperative for all and sundry to put our shoulders to the wheel to ensure that the burden being exerted on the country’s economy by illiteracy is reduced if not totally eliminated. The pace of the NFLP in ensuring the eradication of illiteracy in Ghana is too slow and need to be accelerated a bit faster. I have noted with serious concern the current inadequate budget allocation to the NFED which is making y Ministry will take a critical look at increasing the budget allocation to NFED. In addition, my Ministry is in the process of sourcing external donor funding for the implementation of the Third Phase of the NFLP. We therefore invite all donor agencies interested in the development and progresses of this country to take up the challenge of funding the Third Phase to enable us reduce illiteracy to single digits and also to empower women.”

Talking on some achievements, he said it was gratifying to note that the NFED has provided functional literacy in 15 major local languages in Ghana in addition to English . “Through the development activities of literacy classes, several communities have benefited from the resourcefulness of adult literacy learners. Learners have been able to provide hand dug wells, constructed schools, nurseries, markets and planted trees in their communities in order to facilitate development in their areas of abode. It is reassuring that learners have not kept the skills they have acquired to themselves but used them to the benefit of their communities. Through Functional Literacy, women participants have contributed to family incomes.”

The Minister commended the management and Staff of the NFED, other providers of literacy in Ghana as well us collaborators of the NFLP for their immense contribution to the reduction of illiteracy in our dear country. “I want to extend special felicitations to the numerous volunteer facilitators, chiefs and other opinion leaders and district, municipal and metropolitan assemblies in the country for the contribution they have made towards improving the living conditions of their non-literate brothers and sisters”.

Functional literacy is indispensable in modern society. There is virtually nothing that could be done by an individual without utilizing reading, writing and numeracy skills.

To be literate is to be intellectually empowered. Intellectual empowerment leads to freedom and people who possess individual freedom have been able to discover their own identities and worked towards achieving them.

Functional literacy is the catalyst for realizing dreams, achieving goals and attaining objectives. Without Literacy, the world around us will be static, without promise and hope. There will be no cracking power to spark the engine of individual growth and development. There will be no key to open the door to development and achievement. The whole world will be locked up in a prison of underdevelopment and backwardness.

Countries with high illiteracy rate are at the cross roads of development and have become helpless and powerless to push the agenda of development forward.

BY: Michael Amedor

Cold war at GT Bank

Trouble is brewing at one of the emerging banks in the country, Guaranty Trust Bank (GT bank) Ghana Limited, over the alleged unfair treatment of workers by management.

The situation has led to a state of uneasiness among junior and mid-career workers of the bank who feel insecure at the hands of management.

This follows the dismissal of one Kwame Osiang Adjekum, an assistant banking officer with the bank.

A dismissal letter jointly signed by the bank’s head of Human Resource, Susan Okine and Group Head of Corporate Services, Iris Richter-Addo dated September 7, 2010, did not state the reason for the termination of Mr. Adjekum’s appointment.

It only said “your services are no longer required by the bank.”

The bank has since asked him to arrange to have his identification card, lapel pin, credit policy guide and all other documents belonging to the bank returned to the human resource department.

They have also resolved to communicate their indebtedness to Mr. Adjekum and whatever entitlements due him, including a month’s salary in lieu of notice by 30th September 2010.

His dismissal has sent threatening signals to workers of the bank since they feel insecure at the developments.

Several of these workers have been speaking with DAILY GUIDE on condition of anonymity about the cold treatment being meted out to them at the bank.

Public Relations Officer of the Labour Commission, Mohammed Affum, says the Commission has waded into the ‘strange’ circumstance under which Mr. Adjekum was dismissed from the bank, after he filed a petition at the Commission.

In his petition, a copy of which is in the possession of DAILY GUIDE, Mr. Adjekum stressed the belief that he was dismissed for the wrong reasons.

He narrated the circumstances leading to his dismissal following a complaint to his bosses by the Managing Director of Afrotropic Cocoa Processing Company (ACPL), Carlo Dagnino.

Dagnino was said to have visited the bank on Friday, September 3, 2010 without a scheduled appointment and on arrival called Mr Adjekum’s personal mobile phone.

The petition indicated that the victim had then left his phone on his desk and gone to the washroom.

Thinking that Mr. Adjekum was avoiding him or his calls, Mr. Dagnino proceeded to lodge a complaint with the MD of GT bank, Dolapo Ogundimu.

Dolapo then invited Mr. Adjekum to his office and demanded his mobile phone in the presence of the General Manager, Jamiu Yussuf and the Group Head of Consumer banking, Anthony Mensah, which he respectfully gave out.

He followed it up with the submission of his itemized bill indicating the call traffic between him and the client which indicated that he had been in touch with the said client.

Despite this fact, Mr. Adjekum said that Dolapo called for his resignation before close of day on Friday or have his appointment terminated. Dolapo went on to make allegations that he took this action because a customer had called him 10 times in two days without answering the calls.

This, Mr. Adjekum described as erroneous since he had visited the customer’s office on the previous Thursday with the Head of Risk Management, Daniel Gaikpah, who saw the number of times he spoke with the customer, both on the way to and from the customer’s office and factory.

Mr. Adjekum thus believes that he was wrongfully dismissed and thus asked the Labour Commission and whoever might be concerned to intervene in the matter.

When contacted, GT bank’s Head of Human Resources, Susan Okine, she said she was at a meeting and could not talk.

Even though she promised to call back, she never did.

Guaranty Trust Bank was registered in Ghana in October 2004 and obtained its universal banking licence from the Bank of Ghana on 23rd February, 2006, thereby paving the way for the commencement of operations.

The bank is a subsidiary of Guaranty Trust Bank Nigeria Plc which owns 95.72% of the issued share capital of the bank with Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij Ontwikkelingslanden N.V. (FMO) holding 2.14% and Alhaji Yusif Ibrahim, a Ghanaian business entrepreneur, holding the remaining 2.14%.
Source : Daily Guide