General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comIn this era where joblessness has become the norm and some youth in the country, have chosen either promiscuous, deviant or bloody ways of getting quick money, these young men living in Kantamanto have decided to do better. That’s what they’ve turned to and it’s working wonders for them. With some dye, a bottle of water, a plain material be it shirt or shorts or even a dress, some rubber bands, and a dose of creativity, these young men are recycling second-hand clothing into very beautiful and colourful apparels. These attractive clothes are now virtually everywhere on the market and they are making some good money also. They spoke to GhanaWeb’s Wonder Ami Hagan on the ‘People&Places’ show and this is what they had to say:

Business News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comThe Islamic Research Institute, Ghana, IFRIG; is all set to undertake its first major event of 2021 with a conference on Islamic Finance. The discussion panel will include Fawzi Mohammed, Hajia Amina Sammo and Hajia Azara Abukari-Haroun; an Islamic finance enthusiast, a financial literacy campaigner and CEO of Zakat and Sadaqah Fund of Ghana respectively. Three IFRIG researchers are also billed to join the panel discussions, among them: Director General, Shaibu Ali; Director of Finance, Yusif Geoffrey and Director of Audit, Musah Ismail. On the group’s preparedness for the occasion, Director General Shaibu Ali who doubles as head of research said all was set for the day. The venue, our guests and all other logistical workings are in place; basically we are raring to go,” he stressed.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comMartin Alamisi Burnes Kaiser Amidu has described the nomination of Lawyer Kissi Agyebeng as his successor at the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP) as “a surrogate” of persons implicated in the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Corruption Assessment report. According to him, Kissi Agyebeng’s appointment is to safeguard the interests of persons the corruption assessment report implicated. Anybody who cares to know knows that the alter ego of Africa Legal Associates is a cousin of the President who also established Asaase Radio which began official transmission on 14 June 2020. “My functions or my judgement and decision as the Special Prosecutor to resign my office under Act 959 was not subject to the supervision or judgement of civil society actors let alone those of them who secretly attend Government policy-making meetings as I had occasion to point out in writing previously. “In exercise of brazen impunity, Asaase Radio reported online a matter which never featured in my resignation for pure political propaganda to facilitate and enhance the status of its surrogate “Agyapa” Special Prosecutor even before the president could indicate his acceptance of the nominee and forward a request to parliament,” Amidu’s statement read further.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comManasseh Azure Awuni says after the publication of his book about John Dramani Mahama dubbed “The Fourth John”, the NDC constituted a committee to prevent him from launching the book. Speaking on ‘Moomen Tonight’ monitored by GhanaWeb on Tuesday, the investigative journalist noted that it took the intervention of former President John Dramani Mahama himself to prevent the committee from carrying out their planned intention. “My book, when I wrote ‘The Fourth John’, I wrote very critical things about the former president. Did you see any NDC people going to attack me on the book? 'The Fourth John: Reign, Rejection & Rebound' is a book that gives revealing accounts of governance, policies and programmes of the fourth presidency of Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comManasseh Azure Awuni feels that there was selective justice in jailing only Abuga Pele in the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) scandal which he investigated and he [Abuga Pele] was implicated. According to him, if there was anybody who had to go to jail with former National Coordinator of the defunct GYEEDA, Abuga Pele, then it is Clement Kofi Humado. Clement Kofi Humado was never touched. And the worst thing was that Clement Kofi Humado was the prosecution witness against Abuga Pele,” Manasseh Azure Awuni stressed. BackgroundAbuga Pele and Philip Akpeena Assibit stood trial for committing acts that led to the loss of GH¢4.1 million to the state.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comUrsula Owusu-Ekuful, Communications and Digitalization Minister, has revealed that she experimented with lesbianism known in secondary schools as ‘supi supi’ growing up as a girl in secondary school. At some stage, we’ve experimented with stuff like that but it was a passing phase. Some people never grow out of it and don’t see it as one of the secondary school things that we indulge in, in our exploration. She added: “You’re exploring your sexuality so you do all kinds of silly things growing up. Thank God there were no social media when we were growing up; you will leave a permanent record of some of these crazy things…”

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comAfter the release of the Ford Expedition gift investigative exposé prior to the 2016 general elections, Manasseh Azure Awuni, the investigative journalist behind the story was offered police protection but he turned it down. This was disclosed by Manasseh Azure Awuni himself on GTV’s ‘Moomen Tonight’ on Wednesday, April 28. During the interview, Awuni recalled a conversation he had with Dr Edward Omane Boamah, a then-minister on the night the Ford exposé was aired on Joy News. When asked how come a government who seeks to silence journalists especially you [Manasseh] would give police protection, Azure Awuni averred, “I am not saying that the government is seeking to silence Manasseh. Djibril Kanazoe, the Burkinabe contractor who supplied the gift, admitted giving President Mahama the Ford Expedition vehicle for which the president called to thank him.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comManasseh Azure Awuni has been explaining why he believes that under the presidency of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Ghanaians cannot express themselves freely. According to him, even though he complains about some form of ‘culture of silence’ under President Akufo-Addo and yet he can express his views, it does not indicate that there is no ‘culture of silence’. Manasseh Azure Awuni stated further that the killing of Ahmed Suale, an investigative journalist with Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ Tiger Eye PI, puts some fear in journalists. Ordinarily [they] would occur and be termed as stifling of media freedom,” Azure Awuni told Abdul Hayi Moomen. People who had no credibility when you were in government why would they soon have credibility when you are in opposition?

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comInvestigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has disclosed that he has a personal relationship with ex-president John Dramani Mahama, despite widespread public perception that he was equally a strong critic. He described Mahama as a gentleman who was tolerant to a fault so much so that the former president defended him (Manasseh) at a point against attacks by people in his own inner circle. GhanaWeb monitored an interview that the journalist granted to Ghana Television’s Abdul Hayi Moomen on Wednesday evening discussing a wide range of issues around his journey so far in Ghana’s media space. He ranked Mahama higher than President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the area of defending press freedoms and deepening freedom of speech. He slammed the current president’s press rights record asserting that overtly and covertly, the Akufo-Addo government had overseen the return of one form of the culture of silence or the other.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comGhana's two-term former president, John Agyekum Kufuor, says political rivalry needed to be harnessed as a tool to advance the measure of checks and balances within the political governance structure. Sovereignty is not locked in government but the rivalry among political parties upholds the principle of checks and balances. “Now we have a hung Parliament, this will mean that the executive must learn to accommodate [the Minority] so that the winner does not take all,” he noted. So between parties, rivalry should be fine. I believe we have laws in place, and it is up to us to ensure that they work,” he added.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comA one-time Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) journalist of the year, Manasseh Azure Awuni, says he has no regrets publishing hard-hitting investigative stories against the person and government of former President John Dramani Mahama. According to the investigative journalist, he was only doing his job by reporting on subjects and matters of interest to the general public predominantly during his time at Multimedia. Speaking on GTV’s Moomen Tonight programme on Wednesday, April 28, 2021; Manasseh said calls especially on social media for him to apologize to the former president were misplaced, to say the least. To persons who ask that I apologize to Mahama: “My response is that if I had the opportunity to do all the stories I did in the Mahama era, I will do them again. A standout hard-hitting story Manasseh did prior to 2016 when Mahama lost re-election was the Ford bribery saga; which to date is a source of contention as Mahama says its content were lies but Manasseh insists even on the GTV show that he still stands by the story till date.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comInvestigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni says a friend at the presidency during the John Dramani Mahama era begged him to delay the release of the famous Ford bribery scandal till after the 2016 elections. Without mentioning names, Manasseh said the approach was made with the reason that if he went ahead, the Mahama re-election campaign was going to fail. Stressing that he had received bribery overtures but never once collected a bribe, GhanaWeb monitored further comments on the approach to drop the Ford bribery scandal against the person of John Dramani Mahama. Mahama eventually went on to lose the 2016 elections to Akufo-Addo even though a state body, CHRAJ, had cleared him of any wrongdoing in the issue. He maintained in a late 2020 interview that the allegation was untrue.

General News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.comDO NOT DEFAME MARTIN AMIDU IN THE PROPAGANDA TO NOMINATE A NEW SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: BY MARTIN A. Didn’t the President know these facts when he invited me and convinced me to accept to be the first Special Prosecutor? How then did the nomination letter of a new Special Prosecutor come into the public domain to make the rounds in the press? The independence of the Special Prosecutor from the direction or control of any person or authority in the performance of the functions of his office are the operative statutory words for the nomination of an impartial Special Prosecutor! Section 13 particularly subsections (3) and (4) of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2018 (Act 959) spells out the procedure for the nomination and appointment of a qualified Special Prosecutor.

Sports News of Thursday, 29 April 2021Source: Ghana GuardianHearts of Oak's defensive midfielder, Abdul Aziz Nurudeen on Wednesday resumed training. He was welcomed by the Physical trainer/ welfare officer of the team, W.O Tandoh as the two went into a brief meeting before he started his session. The physical trainer after assessing him came up with a specially designed training to ease him into the team. The special training requires that he trains barefooted. I thank the medical team and the club for the support shown to me.

But the Tourism and Creative Arts Minister, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Awal has come to their rescue to help better their lives. He has promised to invest in musicians and filmmakers for them to become rich and comfortable. “We will invest in this ecosystem to make sure that our artistes, filmmakers, musicians inclusive become rich and comfortable," the sector minister reiterated. He said this during the launch of the Presidential Film Pitch Series held in Accra on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. The purpose of the Presidential Film Pitch Series is to motivate the production of good Ghanaian movies to compete with the global creative arts market.