Prez Mahama Asked To Pass LI To Back PWD Act

Prez John Dramani Mahama

A human right and social justice activist in the Bolgatanga Municipality in the Upper East Region of Ghana Awal Ahmed, has called on President John Dramani Mahama to expedite action on the passage of a Legislative Instrument that would ensure full operationalisation of the Persons With Disability Act (Act 715) passed into law in 2006.

                           

The PWD Act (Act 715) sought among other things to guarantee PWDs access to public places, free general and specialist medical care, education, employment and transportation. It also sought to ensure that PWDs play an active and central role in all aspects of life, regulate the commitments and responsibilities of state and private duty-bearers and service providers.

For instance, an assessment of public buildings in the Bolgatanga and Bawku Municipalities by RISE-Ghana, a non-governmental organization in 2012 revealed that about 95 percent of them were not disability friendly. Some of these buildings included Basic and Senior High Schools, Hospitals, The Courts, Traditional Councils and Ministries, Departments and Agencies. 

In a signed press statement issued to the media including Savannahnews, Mr. Ahmed said the passage of an LI would bring to an end the gross violation of provisions enshrined in the Act from the construction and health sectors.

While congratulating President Mahama on his election to the high office of the land and his previous support to PWDs such as the directive to increase their share of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) allocation from 2 percent to 3 percent, Mr. Ahmed also urged the President to use his first 100 days to amend the disbursement procedure to make PWDs signatories to the 3 percent DACF account.

Mr. Ahmed who is also the Project Manager of RISE-Ghana, further called on the President to allocate adequate resources to the various special schools and rehabilitation centers located across the country.

Fighting Climate Change: What Northern Farmers’ Can Learn From The Upper Regions

Farmers in the Upper West and Upper East Regions of Ghana contribute negatively to the destruction of the natural environment; nonetheless they are also conscious of ensuring that it is not completely depleted by their actions because of posterity.

Like everywhere in the northern part of the country, farmers in these regions engage in felling of trees, charcoal production and bush burning among others but with some form of moderation. 

For instance, farmers mostly depend on dead trees for fuel wood and charcoal production and not life ones. In some situations, they prune the branches of older trees for fuel and for building purposes and not cutting them down completely for usage. This practice allows the trees to flourish again for future purposes. 

Indeed, in most parts of the Upper West Region, bush burning has been banned for several years particularly in the Nandom Traditional Area. Persons caught engaging in the act are arrested immediately by anti-bushfire volunteers put in place by traditional councils and fined or punished severely. In the Upper East Region, the Bongo District has been rewarded on several occasions for their unflinching support towards anti-bush burning. 

Even though a greater percentage of the farmers in the aforementioned regions are not educated, they know what it takes for one to become a successful farmer, thus doing farming alongside animal husbandry for them, is the best means of ensuring good yields and for that matter, bumper harvest. They make very good use of the droppings of their animals in their farming business so long as they are confined.

All communities within the two regions where crop farming is a major source of livelihood are per bylaws passed by their Traditional Councils or otherwise, compelled to arrest all ruminants during every rainy season and confine them till farming and harvesting is over, before the animals are released.

These bylaws are often re-enforced after the third rainfall (depending on where one is located) through announcements by all traditional rulers of the various communities. The announcements at times end with a note of caution that sounds like this: “Anyone who refuses to confine his/her ruminants and allow them to destroy the crops of any farmer risk losing them through lynching by the farm owner or could be fined by the traditional council.”  

The strict adherence to confining animals during the farming season in these regions is to protect their crop plants from being destroyed by the animals. Besides, they also get manure to apply on their farms through the animal droppings.

Unlike the Upper West and Upper East Regions, the Northern Region is one area where indiscriminate felling of trees, reckless bush burning, increased charcoal production and the deliberate straying of domestic animals is very rampant.

Apart from the Gonjaland area where farmers confine their animals during the farming season, those in the rest of the Northern Region let loose their animals to wander about. 

Despite the fact that the effects of desertification and climate change are staring in the faces of residents of the Northern Region, the people still have a very bad attitude towards proper environmental management perhaps due to lack of education or indiscipline.  

In each farming season, most farmers go about cutting younger trees especially neem trees and others that are still struggling to mature, and use them to fence their farmlands in order to ward off animals from destroying their crop plants. This is aside felling bigger trees including shea trees as fuel wood and for charcoal production particularly in the Dagbon and Gonjaland areas where the practice has reached its crescendo. 

Besides, many farmers also use wires obtained from burnt car tyres to do the fencing, a practice that is encouraging more people to burn car tyres for the wires which is a source of livelihood for them.

So, just imagine that in the Northern Region an average farmer has about five acres of farmlands and has to fence all of them with sticks obtained by felling or destroying smaller trees. This means that millions of younger trees are cut down each year just for fencing farmlands.

Burning car tyres also lead to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) which is a major threat to the ozone layer. According to Wikipedia, the ozone layer is a layer in Earth's atmosphere which contains relatively high concentrations of ozone (O₃). This layer absorbs 97–99% of the Sun's high frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to the life forms on Earth.  Scientists say, the ultraviolet rays can cause skin cancer if the ozone layer is completely eaten up by CO2. CO2 gas is also the cause of global warming as well as climate change which is seriously affecting rainfall patterns.

There is no denying the fact that high incidence of bush burning, indiscriminate felling of trees for fuel or charcoal production, fencing of farmlands, among others in most parts of Northern Ghana especially in the Northern Region are seriously contributing to the low and erratic rainfalls, rising temperatures/hot weather, drought and low yields in crop production. For instance, available statistics at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture showed that there had been rainfall variation in the North in recent years. The average rainfall figures from 2004 to 2010 were 1243.24, 1066.79, 822.50, 672.61, 829.89, 865.44 and 364.85 millimetres, respectively.

The Savannah Accelerated Development Authourity (SADA) under its forestry programme has started planting thousands of tree plants in many parts of the North. The goal for this initiative is to combat desertification and climate change owing to the occurrence of negative environmental practices being perpetrated by residents.

Ahead of this beautiful initiative by SADA, the Ghana Environmental Management Programme (GEMP) which is being implemented in three regions of the North and seeking to combat desertification would fizzle out. Under this programme, thousands of tree seedlings such as cashew and mango have been planted in beneficiary regions.

 

But this cannot be a success when most environmental laws are not being enforced by the government. Therefore, in order to ensure that the phenomenon is addressed, there is the need for government through all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the Northern Region as well as the two Upper Regions, to as a matter of priority and urgency, enforce all environmental bylaws in their respective jurisdictions. Anyone caught breaking such laws should be prosecuted and punished severely to serve as deterrent to others.

High Cost Of Dowry, Others Top Agenda Of Women Group In 2013

Campaign against high cost of dowry, violence against women and witchcraft and empowerment of widows as well as girls seeking their livelihood on the streets of cities in Ghana are atop the agenda of the Savannah Women’s Empowerment Group (SWEGG) in the year 2013.

At the end of a two-day meeting attended by over one hundred SWEGG members from different professional backgrounds in the Upper East Regional capital town of Bolgatanga last December, the group outlined a series of initiatives to be embarked upon to raise the status, political voice and socio-economic wellbeing of women in the largely rural and impoverished regions of Ghana.

A wide array of women’s organization leaders who addressed the meeting, urged SWEGG to build a stronger united front to advance women’s equal rights and economic justice. Some placed strong hopes for support for women’s agricultural and economic empowerment in the advent of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authourity (SADA).  

A gender advocate and former Deputy Upper East Regional Minister Lucy Awuni who opened the meeting, observed that improvement of women’s role in all sectors of the country’s economy could only be achieved if they were given equal opportunities as men at the grassroots and national levels during decision making processes. 

 “Women are always pushed back by men” she observed, adding “But when you are the head of everything, you don’t want to give that power away, and that is why men do that. They refuse to see us – the decisions that they take are in their own interests. In development, when we give ideas, they say go and get the water. But women have their own knowledge of issues and we should handle our issues as we like. We ought to be part of every decision: we want this school here, borehole here - our choices.  Take a bold step and influence all your community women to be included in everything” she charged participants. 

Ms. Awuni said, “Some say there are not enough educated women to be in decision-making, but in actual fact every woman is educated in one way or another.  They may not write, but if they talk to you and you see how they manage their home – you’ll know that this woman is educated!’’ 

SWEGG members in the Upper West Region this year will continue to advocate for a reduction in the high cost of dowry or customary marriage rites that make it difficult for young men and women to marry. The negative results of this unfavourable cultural practice include rampant sexual lifestyles thus making victims involve bringing forth bastards, engaging in unsafe abortion practices due to unwanted pregnancies, and also face the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections and diseases.  

For now, SWEGG members in that region say “there is broad agreement even among traditional leaders, that making marriage affordable is a key to stable families”, thus in 2013, they will work with traditional leaders and district assemblies to develop bylaws that would bring reform to the current dowry system in the Upper West Region.

For SWEGG members in the Upper East Region, they agreed to shift from an initial priority on improving the social and legal position of widows to economic empowerment. “We see very effective groups already working on the serious problems faced by widows” says the Upper East Regional Coordinator of SWEGG, Ms. Veronica Munya.

Nationally, various advocacy groups including women lawyers are working to change the legal framework to protect widows from being denied of their assets and social status when their husbands die.  So SWEGG according to Ms. Munya will now focus on economic empowerment, where they would work to put better farm equipment in the hands of women who were already active in the agricultural sector.

Members of the Savannah Women Empowerment Group in the Northern Region also decided to continue with the issue of female head-porters commonly referred to as kayaye. Since 2011, they have focused on this problem as well as health issues, domestic violence, witchcraft and other cultural practices that prevent women from taking leadership roles. In 2013, they plan to intensify work with women chiefs and other traditional leaders to address these issues. 

Meanwhile, SWEGG is a legally registered non-governmental organization founded in 2009.  According to Ms. Amina Montia, Convener of SWEGG, membership of the group already includes almost 2,000 women who were teachers, attorneys, medical doctors, accountants, female chiefs, farmers, traders, politicians and other medical practitioners.

She welcomed men who believed that women hold important keys to economic development in Northern Ghana to endeavour to support the group, adding that, the meeting in Bolgtanga was a real turning point at which SWEGG members confirmed leadership teams in each of the three regions. Therefore, all the regions, she noted, will begin to develop programs to attack such persistent problems as high cost of dowry, kayaye and education of girls, mother and child health, profitable work opportunities for women and solid political representation at local and national levels.

Sacking Persons With HIV From Work Is A Violation Of Their Rights

Nuhu Musah, N/R HIV Focal Person

The Focal Person on HIV and AIDS in charge of the Northern Region of Ghana Nuhu Musah, has asked persons living with the virus (PLHIV) and have been victimized or sacked at their places of work as a result of disclosing their status to lodge a formal complaint with their respective district or regional focal persons to deal with their grievances.

Speaking to Savannahnews in an interview after a programme by the Heart-To-Heart (H2H) campaign tour group from the Ghana AIDS Commission in Tamale, he said it was unlawful and an affront on the basic human rights of PLHIV anywhere in the country to be relieved of their jobs.

“If anybody loses his/her job because his/her employer found out that he/she has HIV, the person should come and complain to me,” he beckoned, adding “We [HIV Focal Persons] are there because of them. I will take it up seriously and make sure that the person is reinstated. It’s a crime and an abuse of one’s human right to be sacked because of HIV”, Mr. Musah maintained.

The H2H group who are also HIV Ambassadors is currently touring the whole nation to educate the populace on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and how they could live positive lifestyles without acquiring it, citing abstinence from sex, avoid sharing sharp objects such as blades, needles among others with other people and using condom when having sex with an unknown partner for the first time. 

Furthermore, the group of four beautiful and handsome energetic young women and a man of God who have been living with the virus for about a decade now, would also encourage people to regularly go for HIV test and also support those who have contracted the virus to seek treatment at government hospitals.

For his part, Secretary to the National Association of Persons Living With HIV (NAP+) Northern Regional chapter Langa Amadu, complained that of the over 790 members of the group, about 85 percent mostly women are unemployed. 

According to him, considering the fact that they have to eat before taking their medication, it would be imperative for government to find members some jobs to do so that at the end of the month they can earn some income in order to cater for themselves.

Mr. Langa appealed to the government to consider engaging them under the sanitation module of the National Youth Employment Programme, otherwise hardship could force some of their members to go into prostitution to seek livelihood.

He also asked the government to speed up with the process of including the antiretroviral drugs in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Drug List, because most PLHIV still could not afford the GH¢5.00 a month for the drugs.

Meanwhile, Reverend John Azumah, a member of the H2H called on religious and traditional leaders across the country to support the work of the group by also spreading the message about HIV to their followers.

According to him, HIV is not a spiritual disease as some men of God belief and asked those [men of God] who have been discouraging or preventing their congregation from going to hospital to seek medication to stop.

Some of those men of God who stand on the pulpit and tell their church members to fast for God to heal them of the virus, he said, also have the HIV. “I am their chairman. They accuse me of being a disgrace to the Christian community in the country just because I have disclosed my status to the general public. However, when they need the drugs, they come to me to get some for them. This is hypocrisy”, Rev. Azumah decried.