Newsfile on Joy News (18-7-20)

[Music] hello good morning and welcome to news file this is your most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file we put ghana first the supreme court has told us its reasons behind the judgment he gave some time back among other things it says very clearly that the electoral commission has power constitutionally to compile a register not only once and your birth certificate is even worse a form of identification to prove your citizenship worse than the nhia card that was repudiated by the court and all those who had gotten their names into the register previously with that nhis card you know lost their ability to vote what is the problem with the registration exercise that is ongoing the political temperature is it getting too high and how might it be moderated but did you know that in all previous registration exercises the guarantor system formed about 90 percent of the people who got onto the register but today the guarantor system after the first phase has done only 34.4 percent it is the ghana card which is leading by some 63.8 percent those who have passports very small 1.8 the question in there is very clear what was all the brouhaha about covert 19 as some parents and teachers and teacher associations begin to clamor for the closure of the schools we ask whether their sentiments and cries are backed by the science gbc is fighting reduction of eight channels will it win i'm something laddie anonymity we're right back to deal with these vex matters [Music] welcome back this is news file is your most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file to put ghana first i titled samson's stick scary loss abuse stop it the christian council has decried the ugly subculture of insults in the name of debate and national on national issues and political issues as well it is very disturbed about how young boys especially without any experience or expertise whatsoever in any field choose plain insults attacking even the elderly attacking people with such knowledge and expertise people who have gotten to length that they can only dream off and he wants this to stop calling also on the youth leaders of these parties to show example i wrote about the law's prohibition of some of these conducts when the ndc youth especially abused martin amidu a person with such stature within the legal fraternity without any basis he always wrote and they replied him with insults the youth leaders are equally guilty they insult when they are supposed to debate issues in fact we have our mps some of whom do this every day publicly on tv and on radio they insult and they get healed they get praised how many times have you not heard even mps abuse the ec commission chair gene mensah in such language you doubt where those people got their upbringing as we speak there are people creating fake things about some of the id cards the ec is churning out to what benefit just last week a former minister otiku afisa jaba was also at the receiving end of non-factual fabrications about her plain lies about her well i've been at the end of some of that but that's not important to me my call this morning is to the political leadership especially what country are we creating for the future do you want your children to insult their elders in the name of debating issues thank you that's by way of my take our guests are seated and we get to look at the issues for this morning a bill malika kuba creditor in chief of the new crusading guy newspaper our regular panelist is here in the studio dr oku boy is mp lego cuckoo and deputy health minister will be joined on zoom uh samuel nette george mp ningo from pram and he's a ranking member on the communications committee of parliament of course because we'll be talking about the uh these gbc's fight with the communications ministry ernest kofi abuchi is dean upsa law school he's also joining us on zoom uh thank you very much for making time to join us mr buchi okay kindly work on your your microphone and then gottfried yep dummy deputy attorney general and minister for justice will also join us uh gentlemen good morning and thank you for making time thank you great all right so yes go fred goffrich joins us on phone and gofred will be with us to discuss the very first issue of the supreme court's judgment that we all now know and the aspect of it that says that your dev certificate is no proof of your citizenship what's all the haha about have they said anything wrong okay so let's begin by listening briefly to girlfriend dummy we're listening to kofi about as well and then we'll return to the studio to have the discussion it is just a record of the tech bests and deaths of carrying a ghana and that's what he's supposed to use for the process of ensuring of as far as i'm saying that's supposed to be useful for for the prisoners that are impacted upon by safeguardings how many pesos are involved in ghana and how many persons now maybe age over 18 and above yeah when is also stated here that your mother is a ghanaian or young father is a ghanaian when there has not been any verification and when that entry could have been actually and provided by a person who was only an occupier or a premises and ritual ball what would be the acceptable means of verifying those details no verifying that the person's mother and father were born in ghana yes that is why when you're going to issue a passport when a person has been issued now the process for his transfer password goes beyond the message when that a person said you're named you're supposed to provide the names of your parents grandparents your hometown address and whatever how do you verify that those are your parents the depth of a foreign face yesterday was on go network and i listened to him and he said clearly that the officers there who sometimes when they have genuine questions who go to a place of verification and i'm saying that this decision should be held and rather be be resorted to by all state institutions and inform them as to how to then go about these processes of insurance passports and other other important documents um for a nation but you went through the process mr dummy how did how did they verify that's what yeah but how did you get the passport mr dummy okay right did you use your birth certificate let me refer you to section three of the passwords act now the session three of the passwords and travels in here lsbt 155 clearly indicates that the passport ireland diplomatic or special password as the ordinary passport shall not be issued assistant except on payment of this high free so it tells you there is only citizens of ghana who issued a passport and so really the military have investigated cannot establish something insecure scientists nothing that is very sound and valid and all those who are making those arguments have true without regards to law you said that that that final paragraph indicates that the solution to this problem is the national identification card is it the need for some credible and reliable multi-purpose national identification system and i think that we'll get to a time that um like other developed countries when you once you are born you are issuing the card and that kind of is sufficient and all these positions about um registration every night and then and and person having a different id card for nia a different id card for voting infrared card for for password reporters who would we will be done away with now let me just say first of all that i i think the decision is rooted in pragmatism that decision itself so this is a decision whose outcome may appear to be informed by pragmatic considerations when the when the voters id when the original voters registration was adopted indeed when the constitution was adopted i don't think the framers contemplated that a time will come where forensic and biometric registration may you know make may be invented also to speak and may justify necessitate and render out mood at a previous previous register and that may have been adopted i don't think that was and i think therefore that may have been overtaken by time which has created a situation we have today but the reasons that are contained or were contained in the decision the reasons that have been given by the courts so that might be difficult to rationalize with their greatest respect to their justices and um you know which of which of them do you have a difficulty with well i think you just mentioned the issue of the voters the birth certificate the birth certificate has been accepted for a number of reasons i mean for all kinds of things identification purposes all kinds of things you cannot get a passport of ghana unless you have a vote unless you have a best certificate so if you if you can be given a passport which is recognized as one of the moods and the originating point of a passport usually is the best certificate but the passport at the end product can be accepted however the best certificate which indicates your your lineage in fact if you look under the constitution the factors of citizenship the best certificate contains those factors the issue of best the place of birth the issue of the parentage all these are contained in the best certificate so the decision is what it is and at the moment it is the law of the land but rational decisions are the rational reasons that have been advanced for them again with a greater respect to the justices some of them are difficult um to to to justify so to speak so you heard first got freddie about dummy who's the deputy attorney general and you just heard dean abuchi of the upsc law faculty completely divergent views of course what did you expect gottfried dummy urged the position the supreme court has simply relayed to us on them if you have read this documents he put in the court he made the argument succinctly and they agreed with him if he had read the judgment also they were simply agreeing with him now let me begin with um mr buchi what is is your difficulty in appreciating the conclusion that the supreme court come to on the question of the birth certificate not being capable of presentation as identification for purposes of identification to prove your citizenship this suit clearly was settled on the back of the abu ramadan case and you find the court didn't do anything new but simply tell us back what it had done earlier what don't you understand about it okay because this is a public education thing i need to first of all clarify that the decision of the supreme court is the law of the land our expression of opinion is merely commentary at the stage so nobody should be mistaken that we are still engaged in an argument and the court's work is done we're just expressing opinion after the fact now here's the case um and again i have you know a lot of respect for the justices of the courts and the decision that has been taken generally speaking you know i i think broadly speaking is all right with me the non-inclusion of the best certificates as a factor of identifying a citizen that i have a difficulty with and the reason i have a difficulty with that lies in the fact that even by section 6 of the citizenship act read together with the constitution it is clearly stated that a person is a citizen of ghana if he was born in ghana after the coming into force of the 1982 constitution or if either of his parents were genetics at the time of his path therefore holding a document on which is written a bad certificate which therefore means it certifies the contents of the ring with bio data contained in the document and the bio data clearly stating that x was born on a certain date to certain parents was given a certain name was born in a certain hospital at a certain time specific bio data that describes a certain person i would think that that constitutes a form of identity albeit a limited form of identity now in respect of citizenship it is such a vital document to the extent that it demonstrates the place of your best which is an important constitutional criterion for ascertaining whether or not you qualify as a citizen of ghana under section 6 of the citizenship act 2000 and under the constitutional provisions on citizenship so i was maybe i was looking for a little bit more detail in terms of the expectation by the justices on the question of why in spite of the citizenship act and in spite of the constitution um it was still not a relevant document for conservation for purposes of ascertaining whether you qualify to be given a new voter's card or voters id card and for your name to be registered or entered into the register of voters respond to this briefly to me respond to this briefly to me before we proceed the court said a birth certificate is not a form of identification do you agree or you don't the because there's not a form of identification but again it's an exposition of that and so let's be clear about this normally identity documents tend to be accompanied by photographs so you're not just reading bio data but you're connecting it to a person who's identified so you agree you agree with that part then they proceed to say it does not establish the identity of the bearer which you just said you agree with that nor does it link the holder with the information on the certificate no you're ready so that's the thing you've read two different things so it doesn't link the holder to the carrier so it doesn't make the holder to the person claiming to be the one in the document to the extent that you can't connect it by a photographic element in the absence of a photographic element you have bio data which merely describes certain content and that can actually describe anybody else and so for example you can have someone who actually responds to the data or documents all of which are contained in there um it may say you were born on a certain date you're born to certain parents you're born at a certain time somebody who was born in the hospital on the same day may actually respond to all those factors including even the name okay so on the face of this on the face of this statement you don't exactly disagree that it does not establish the identity of the bearer nor does it link the holder with the information of the certificate the third thing they raise is quite obviously it provides no evidence of citizenship there you disagree explain absolutely absolutely there with the greatest respect i disagree the issue of not providing evidence of citizenship the citizenship act together with the constitution from article sex of the constitution clearly states who a citizen of ghana is the citizenship act is even more specific about the fact that beth in ghana so you must have been born within the boundaries of ghana once you are born within the boundaries of ghana you are a citizen on the face of it if you were born therefore in ghana and you have a citizenship you sorry you have a best certificate issued you by the republic of ghana that is on the face of it in the absence of any other um any other derogating documents a document that for example any other derogating document or factor such as fraud among others in the absence of any of these on the face of it by reason of the fact that you are born in ghana you qualify by death you qualify by having been born within the territory of ghana and therefore if you are issued a citizen the best certificate on the face of that again i'm i'm looking for the reason the reason why it is not in spite of the fact that the constitution together with the citizenship act are rather explicit about the fact that beth within the territory of ghana qualifies to be a citizen they say it does not satisfy the requirements of article 42 article 42 says to be a citizen you must possess what and what to be a voter to be a voter to be a voter you must possess what and what you must be a citizen of ghana you must be 18 years of age and above and you must have been of sound mind are they correct are they correct in saying that the best set does not satisfy this uh requirement that is the logic of the decision the decision essentially has said that by holding the best certificate of itself you do not qualify okay a bit of a problem with the connection to abortion hello yeah i mean you do not qualify for the citizenship practice the justices don't say things hear me okay now you have read the judgment and haven't read the judgment you would see clearly that this conclusion or assertion they make it derives from the abu ramadan case where this the court differently constituted required that this the requirements of article 42 ought to be met and that that is a very serious you know consideration that has to be met i don't think that i don't think anybody at all can take issues with article 42 article 42 is explicit and the justices have time and again uh reiterated the effect of article 42. clearly the justice is concerned is how do you establish the citizenship criterion of article 42 and it seems that from the decision the justices are rather upheld the objection is to including the voters sorry including the birth certificate by saying that the best certificate doesn't constitute an identity document for the purposes of of citizenship okay so if you if you could hold on briefly there for me and uh some george i just saw some judge also on the on the zoom thank you very much for joining us uh we will get to the matters that require your greater contribution shortly now go for dummy is on the line uh guffrey thank you for joining us thank you very much samson right so and a good morning to the listeners guests we have today dr kaboy goofy about you and great so when the supreme court says that in fact the birth certificate for the purpose under discussion is even worse than the nhis card which the supreme court had earlier rejected he said it is worse than the nhi card which was held to be unconstitutional as evidence of identification of a person who applies for registration as a voter what's the use of my birth certificate right okay i think that i must have paid tribute to your cause examination skills and indeed in the question and answer session that is just engaging with their portfolio it has become eminently clear that initial reactions of certain people to the ruling where actually i am confronted i lead up on the process i mentioned realize that fundamentally most people who have to agree with their bullying they really was quite sound and all that and the answer is actually what to just said the issue before the court was not really about citizenship the issue before the court was about proof of eligibility to vote the proof was ready to vote or register criteria that had been set out in ci126 by the electoral commission where what were being proved and the question was whether those two documentation the old voter id card and the birth certificate i'm qualified as proper instruments of identification of a voter and then have to be allowed and that's the way i want to search so and of course underlying it was then the because the requirement of article 42 about the debate to vote the nationality of the person the age and the soundness of my yes underlying it will be a sub issue of how to prove a person's guardian nationality and so that that doesn't automate ultimately so i think that in terms of preference between reports the nhrs card which has targeted ourselves now by the court clearly compared to the president was even better and therefore they spring all those rights and come to conclusion that the president's case was wasted as the nhis gap how do i avoid rising so i say so because illegal investigates apart from the mere identification of a person by them there is no other identity at all established by the bodybuilding visits the patient gives only establishes a person's identity by name even though identity by name is not verified but at least the services now there's no identity by face or by any biometric features in the business widget so i cannot literally take your basically stands navigationally i mean after having registered at ios west and go to mkhmas or anywhere at all and brandish it as my best advocate even this such a documentary to be allowed as one of the instrumental identification of potential votes that would be the consequence anybody also can just make a basic because there's no biometric feature there's no um identity by phrase because there's no photograph there and also you cannot connect the details on the basis to any better at all and that is what the speaker said and that is a fact that has been increased since 1955 when the registration of price and death act was passed to date yes so i don't think there's any countries that was wasted that there is a status record was writing in soho now you come then to the issue what then becomes the president as far as i'm concerned it's just a record of breath and that is what the law expected it to be if you look at the restriction of base and base act 1965 at 301 the object of the law is stated in a long time the long title is what comes under the the name of the act this is an act to provide for the registration of best fitness and death and to provide for barrier grounds and for related matters and if you look at all the processes set out under the law there's no requirement there is no mechanism or proof of a person's nationality another act definitely not it only records the best and death in fact it will cause even fit up as a person and feature this i'm sorry that's the person who was born to replace what we call um abortion if that the brain is aborted and yes it is simple as that and if you look at section two which requires you right when you show the breath of the two mental register it doesn't talk about anything obligation at all okay you see all the details on the best certificate can be entered upon by a person who is not related section 8 2003 the subject is substance in two or three tendencies that prescribe particulates for institutions of the pharisees by a the father and mother of the child all be in the case of the death or incapacity of the father mother i the occupy of the premises in which the child is born you don't have knowledge of their breath or eye a person's presence even if the law itself anticipates that a person who has no knowledge of your ancestry a person who has no knowledge of your roots as a guardian or as an anger name can even enter particulars of of your best at the time that yourself definitely right baby certificate you should be using that food for a citizen so why why why shouldn't i be allowed to present it and then if there's a challenge then we go through the process to establish whether in fact i am the i am the holder and that the information contained on it is accurate because like it's been suggested the same faults that we find with the best set can be found with the passport the same way of verification problems you have with the website can be associated with the passport as well no i think there's an inaccuracy about that and indeed that ought to be demonstrated because i think 42 requires that you must take a length to start with if the document or the instrument that you are wroting it does not privatize it establish that regarding or even collect the details on the on the document to you you cannot present it at all so to start with the business guide is out out and out and that is why since 1992 the truck obviously itself has never used the best certificate as as a listener for verifying um a potential voter or an applicant for instance identity how do you answer how do you answer to the question then now if you look at the passport the affiliate details it's not just the mere transition of great education that is relied on so how do you answer today how do you answer to the ancillary questioning that the primary documentation of identification right for the passport and for the nhra cards right are the best set good right and because um again the foreign affairs ministry requires me to use the the best set to prove my citizenship in the in the electoral commission's manual it says that if someone is challenged as to their uh nationality or citizenship the birth certificate is sufficient then in the national identity regis register in section 8 uh sorry yes section 8 3 3e it's it also provides for the death set as a document required by an individual for entry to be made in the register that is the national identity register how do you explain all right good so i'm saying that the processes for obtaining a gunner passport go beyond the mere production of a reciprocity indeed if we look at the application procedure for a passport it has an extra layer for verification of identity and that is where the the granted system and the application for a passport form you have a grantage of a witness who signs and the witness is supposed to be a senior public servant um a barrister a solicitor or even even a priest so in that process there is that further requirement for verification of representatives and the person who makes false disclosure through that process is liable for your crime and it's punishable so it's of obtaining a foreign first of all so i think that we and then passport office clearly under the resource foreign for foreign affairs itself has its own mechanism for very fireplace identity they have their research departments which is actually an investigative branch of the foreign service and they also have access to the police the cid bni and whatever so you have all these operators of states at the disposal of the past office or the missouri foreign affairs to indeed verify or confirm that peace's claim to canadian nationality okay then you have the national id card yes apart from also with the production of of um of the brexit there's also a requirement for a person to also be interviewed there's an interview process and law and if indeed there are doubts race the nih goes beyond it because takes a better step of verify and that verification process will involve even the production of witnesses and whatever so i think that these mechanisms that have been set up by the states would you really recognize them for their their means of assisting in the statement that in the statement that the nhi a nhi card is uh is even better in for the purpose how can you agree with that except the photograph that is on that card because the birth set has my parents so it indicates my parentage the beth said tells you who my parents are whether they are ghanaians or they are not right okay so two points first of all when i say that the nhis card compared to their basic gate was even better i'm not supporting a position that the nia card is proper for publishers to establish a person's identity as a guardian of a process establishing the liberty to vote i'm only saying that comparatively hit the two instruments from side by side the best educated energizer even the specification was worse and then his cut just as the supreme court said right now yes because really there's no proof of a person's identity apart from the name registered there which could have changed even from person or whatever so and there's no proof of the person's biometric features like facial features and whatever so really it was right now now the the second point i i i i make is that yes because just because there has been a statement on the best certificate that you're getting cannot be taken for all because really the truth is that there is no verification process and that is that that is a fact there is no verification process required to establish a person's nationality even i state on on my my my child's business that's a negan okay nobody requires me to prove that you need a mechanic okay just just in some 30 seconds how do you respond to people who are asking the question now can my best set be used to prove my age yes yes investigator your age it can be one of the means of establishment if you go ahead but but you can't you have to go further but the same questions raised by the supreme court after the bev said connecting to me still remains so how can it be used to prove my age yes i mean it could be but i'm saying it's not even conclusively improved that is a relationship it is not concrete because at the time of obtaining the brexit there is no verification cost to ever ask any details at all right and the purpose as i said is just to record um best and deaths or carry the country okay so so hold on hold on briefly let me get just uh quick views from the non-lawyers uh on the on the on the discussion and then i'll come to you and aboti for just uh two minutes uh you know responses and then we we end the chapter here uh what what do you make of the discussion well well when you have the legal brains talking how do you expect people like us to also intervene but why not free speech part of the democratic dispensation i'm getting the impression and maybe i may be wrong that right now generally speaking the verdict of the supreme court is acceptable and convincing minus the birth certificate anger which has become a subject of some controversy and public discussion and it's good we have scholarly critique as we're having now and that's fantastic it helps improve the law going forward it educates people like us too of course we also have some propagandist attacks and distortions that even amount to scandalization of the supreme court that's not something that we should encourage but it's difficult to stop some of those ugly noises because of the vibrancy of our democracy we might as well try and live with it there's the possibility and i know it is very limited of those who believe they can appeal or reveal sick review the thing is unanimous so united most decisions yeah so it's very difficult but that's why it's a very limited space it's is it difficult or it's almost impossible if you like but well it's a right opinion for people to try and see if something can work because i hear people say oh if there's a change in administration those the supreme court itself will review that decision that's unfair from a very purely legal point of view it's in itself an obscure attack on the integrity of the justices who sat on the thing and it's a political statement that is being made having said all these things as a non-legal mind and on the surface of things yes sometimes some of these judgments verdicts can make you ask questions i recollect that when the supreme court the same supreme court ruled on the tommy thompson coffee kunsan case there was this thing about criminal libraries that it shows like they were under the impression that private persons were not covered by that you remember mrs rowling's case with the eben kwaku the cocaine mata and they came down private persons could avail themselves we were all surprised and we made a lot of noise some political some propaganda some scholar same with uh if you recall apollo case when there was this case have a photo id and a complaint when the supreme court ruled few days to the elections that both could be used were surprised and worried and made some noises here and there there could be one or two more examples based on bonso when the supreme court said truth was not i think was a ban for them it was not a defense some of us were surprised we made noises and then yes all sorts of things came out scholarly critiques and so it educates us as we moved on we realized where the substance of the vedic's lie right when this matter came i instinctively that was my first reaction and so i wasn't worried about those the differences the divergence of opinion between top lawyers legal brains and all that i said well that's part of it we need to go through these processes to have a better understanding now i am progressively shifting to the position articulated by dummy based on all the issues coming up and it is not because i'm any better legal mind but i'm getting more convinced i realized that uh see and he made that point the best certificate and it came up because the second the second the plaintiff brought it up right and it had to be dealt with [Music] i've asked myself why wasn't it ever part of the requirements for voter registration since 92 it never was i don't think it was captured in ci 12 ci 72 or ci91 and for that amended version ci126 so in terms of its history there must have been a reason why it never really came up and i suspect is because of its insufficiency if i recall mr bush even made a point about it being limited in terms of school i suspect because of that that's why it never came up okay for you know inclusion okay and to that extent maybe we might as well move on all right with the supreme court fed it the way it's been okay yeah right and when you mentioned the bamfordo uh it was a question of content exactly that came up let's get to uh some george in some two minutes what do you have to say about the supreme court's judgment have you had the opportunity to read it it's interesting to hear all the um justifications that being made for the ruling that or the ruling in the decision the decision that was made and the reasoning behind it that has been put out by the courts it's just interesting that the same government that's today is telling us that a pet certificate is not necessarily uh proof of identity i wonder how then we can then say that the kanaka which if you look at the national identification registry act the amendments that came to parliament in 2017 under the same government included the the ghana card and if you want the the better everyone i would read that's the national identity where you register amendment acts 2017 at 950. section 8 of acts 750 was amended as such and this is three section eight of the principle and augmented amendment is recommended a by the substitution of subsection one of one the authority shall require an individual who applies for an entry to be made in the register to submit any of the following identity documents a a certificate b a valid passport c a valid residence goes on and on so if even in 2017 the government came and said that for entry into the identity register and the identity is what shows your identity identifies you as a daniel and that certificate as a valid document that could be used to enter you into the national identity registry as passed by act 950 i'm surprised that's the flip-flopping of positions today because maybe we may serve a political reasoning that says that a certificate is even worse than the national health insurance card a birth certificate when you are acquiring it identifies who your parents are identifies their nationality and when you go to um article 6 of the constitution when we talk about freezer ghanian identity of a ghanaian it spells out that it must be by death it must have been born in or outside of ghana to either of a ghanaian parent or grandparent now your birth certificate identifies your your parents and their nationalities before it confess on you a nationalism so for anybody to want to argue to me that that birth certificate which identifies your parents and their nationality which satisfies the condition for articulate sex identifying you as a ghanaian or citizenship as a ghanaian federal and they said that that doesn't count for anything well we we're all at the mercy of the lord justices they've given their judgments we hear them but we disagree with them respectfully have you have you found time to read it i'll i'll add you to to read it um and and sometimes you know we have discussions that we all get into without first reading the the decision um i'll give you just one minute one minute comment yeah i've gone through the judgment you're holding a birth certificate yes what do you what do you want to use it for but you know let me tell you one minute yeah if you read article six chapter three of the constitution look at what it says too subject to the provisions of this constitution a person born in or outside ghana after the coming into force of this constitution shall become a citizen of ghana at the date of his birth if you truncate the reading at this point you get a message wrong then the condition comes if either of his parents or grandparents is or was a citizen of ghana people conveniently let go of this in making the argument if you read in totality you get the message now i brought my best advocate oh this is your own residency this is my own visit okay certified by the commission of course and look at what is on bernardo boy name sex mail name of father emmanuel boiler occupation typist nationality ghana listen i i didn't produce anything for them to capture this information the same with anybody holding this he didn't need to be there in person to prove that he's a ghanaian but i the same way if you went to the passport office or you went to the right card but my brother told you that you need those are buffers no mother maria nationality ghana it's by word of mouth that's what i told them now where sallam hospital was that's what your your parents told them no that's in fact this was the new this okay the one that i had to go there right 2008 because you can't use the old one forever so this makes gives you information if you want to work with it you might need other mechanisms to establish it this is from germany this is for my sect my daughter the second one it gives you information place of birth in bremen the registration number is here now if you are born in germany and none of your friends is a german you cannot be a citizen you cannot go for a passport but wherever you come from they will give you this to show that you were born in germany at a particular place at a particular time if the mother wants to claim citizenship for the child i am not a german she is she has to be there in person produce a document to show that that is a daughter in fact in some occasions they even do dna tests so any any lady or girl in ghana can produce this at any point to say that this is my the birth secret from german now so you realize that it's not even a national funeral it's a universal phenomenon and secondly but let me say that if in our constitution we have settled in it that being born in ghana is proof of citizenship nobody would have issues with it but once that is not the case and there must be proof of ghanian blood that has parents or grandparents i think we have to get it right and so um and you see there's a reason why they said it's even worse than an mbti card with the nhi card its flaw had to do with the fact that residents could also get it but what is better about the nhr even compared to this is that you can enter a system okay and pull out the person all right you can track the person to the car yeah but this you cannot so why don't you use this and require the feather verification processes that it's required when you go for uh passport yeah for the purposes of registration as a voter you've been saved the headache of producing this going to get a guarantor who is a solicitor or barrister by being told that get to people who have who have the card okay and then you are done that's very interesting an argument okay so now let me go to the two lawyers two minutes each uh for both of you um uh girlfriend why shouldn't they why shouldn't the best set be what you lawyer say prima facie an identity document for the purposes of confirming my citizenship prima facie yes because inherently there's even no requirement for um establishment of a person's identity and the processes that have been set out under at failure one so if there is no inherent or impulse mechanism for ensuring that every detail that is entered onto the um activities is valid and can be connected to the variable representatives how much do you use that's what i'm saying that we ought to just take account the sole proposal they so propose that it is a record based in ghana and it's very significant that the loss of this if in ghana yes even though the first one is nuclear by bay has a federal requirement for the society of of the parents that sent to the parents of of of the pests joshua began in so there's no automatic right to guarantee by virtue having been born on the soul of ghana that is important this stage sinks into the situation that reverses in the united states of america and canada and even in the uk too they have stopped recognizing especially for traumatization bypass and that's very important that is why i say that student safe in ghana is a very serious issue very important my time so that's merely being born in canada and having a record of that evidence diversity it should not entertain you to acclimatism because there's a failure requirement by the law for your parents to be to become that's why and i think that that is for me this reason that i now understand why the ndc never should sue it on a baseball president and he's never made a case at all in court that investigates to be used and that's because they knew that the proof of society and has never been used since 1992 so as a major player in particular my friends of color they themselves do it and now i think these noises with all his face are quite hypocritical and indeed if we listen to president obama his reaction to the ruling he was a mistaken that oh it's a gun conspiracy by sending persons to deprive them of their right to vote so this is a fickle this is a consequence for that the question all the statement that they made trying to insinuate that setting presence are involved against conspiracy to the price guardians of their of their galleries or guardian society that's not what those people do okay now let's brief you about a cat you know you read abraham i don't know the concluding paragraph by justice c justice wood actually recognized the ghana cap or anticipated the development of office system like the kanaka reliable multiple processor identification system because the sprinklers they were recognized way back in april number one but there's the absence of that credible national system in ghana and and and tried out for the development of a system and that system is what has now been delivered by nasa education authority through the insurance again account and indeed basically will get a system where we get to a state where the ghana cap just be the primary document okay i did it thank you thank you for useful apart from just the issuance of the ghana account there's also a data stream platform that allows for data verification of four other id cards issued in ghana whether by any type dc and whatever then there's also a register of ganesh by best developed by the ni and that result guardians by best also indicate who has died at what time and whatever it's also under register or off of ghanaians who are acquiring nationalities by registration and by naturalization as as allowed by the physical capital okay all right thank you thank you thank you very much uh girlfriend uh dummy uh for the explanations giving and i think that you would also be interested in finding out that the the guarantor system which appears to have been the the absence of the voter previous voter registration card and the birth certificate what they could have done the argument was that they will cut a lot of people out and then your argument before the court was that that was untenable because in all the registration processes we have done over the period the guarantees account for 90 of the people who got onto the voters register through the new system we have just realized after the first phase that guarantees constitute only 34.4 percent it is rather the ghana card that has shocked almost uh 6 4 of people who are getting onto the voters register uh thank you uh dummy and now let's have a uh abuchi make his final comments and girlfriend made reference to that cj's uh statement and i think i have to make it in four the cj in the abu ramadan said that the need for a credible and reliable multi-purpose national identification system comprising the relevant data and communication infrastructure that would answer to most of our national needs whether for electoral planning or development or other purposes is greater than ever before we think the time has come for the appropriate authorities to respond to this need my expectation of this was that we could use our ghana card as our voters id card and then use it for our health system use it for our driving and all that uh mr what would be your concluding comments two minutes okay so first of all i have a great deal of respect for dr dames the honorable governor damanda for i do not contradict him lightly but i think it's important for us to just also recognize uh what we're doing first of all this is just an evidence so it is not supposed to be conclusive i think to that extent we agree we agree that it's still conclusive it is only evidence of citizenship i.e you present it and if there are further auditing and questions that ought to be done to verify whether the statements that are made their own are actually true those can be done so i think we agree to a limited degree but where we disagree is the fact that it should be excluded entirely it could be looked at i think there's nothing wrong in the sub-procedure of information if you are verifying something there's nothing wrong with having an abundance of information and if beth is one of the factors both the constitution and the citizenship act repeats the best factor so beth is one of the factors and indeed as was read by one of the panelists in there um the deputy minister of health if you were born for example before 1993 your bet in ghana is an automatic indicia of your citizenship if you were born after 1993 your lineage is the main indicia so you can look at these and looking at these as a subluxation of information simply enriches the process of verifying who genuine citizens are for purposes of the registration so it is not a conclusive statement of citizenship but it's an indicia and one that i respectfully think ought to have been looked at and again the justices took a very narrow i mean took a limited view of the birth certificates by reason among others i suspect their major worry is the fact and again the deputy minister mentioned that you see people can obtain best certificates today without sometimes even being there and that's the problem and even if they are there their statements may not necessarily be verified and checked and audited so it is possible people may have obtained birth certificates without actually being gunned and that could be part of the worries i'm sure the justices encountered which is part of the reason why they they raised the bar and decided not to accept the person okay now in fairness to the decision though the previous legislations and i think um the lead judgment the judgment mentioned that the ci 72 and ci91 both of them excluded the best certificate so there has been a consistent practice and the judgment was very explicit on that there has been a consistent practice of excluding the best certificate from the purview of ascertaining citizenship but for me the fact that there has been a consistent practice and a uniform practice in this respect still doesn't change the fact that it's a worrying trend the major means of ascertaining citizenship in ghana is beth and if the major means of ascertaining citizenship is bad both by reason of the citizenship act in the constitution and we still decide not to use the major factor of breadth which is the certificate then i i think i respectfully see a bit in that respect and that's why i worry about that all right but i'll finally say that we should also not politicize the decision um and i've had statements about you know the judgment changing and all the government changing and all that the decision is a judicial decision it has been judicially rationalized all right and it was a unanimous decision and that is why we can't even politicize it at all because i think anyone's decision which okay it's one of the very few decisions in ghana's jewish students where we have entire courts agreed well i think so those comments are comments that you can you can ignore without further if i do thank you all very much we take a quick break when we return there's been some violence in the registration exercise and as you know the political tension appears to be rising how do we bring it down we'll be right back [Music] hey welcome back this is news for alicia most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file as you know we put ghana first now as you may have monitored the registration exercise like some of us clearly noted last week the covert 19 protocols at the various centers dramatically improved uh people are getting a lot more confident in going to the registration centers to register but a couple of issues have come up as a result of the registration and the political season that has actually caused the christian council to call a press conference to ask the politicians to tone down on the rhetoric actually a training college graduate was caught in the ndc mvp crossfire and stabbed to death a 20 80 year old man um was reported my general line has died after he was stabbed in the back at banda in the borough region by men reported to be new patriotic party mpp supporters uh selas a new graduate from akimoda teacher training college was allegedly accosted by the men at banda cabrone on monday when he was returning from a visit to his pastor at when she met this the disease is said to be an a political person but was mistaken to be a member of the opposition uh national democratic congress then they said already there is tension between the two dominant parties in the ongoing voter registration exercise in banda a number of issues going on yesterday you would have heard that some guys were arrested for registering taking the pro the machines to go into people's private homes to conduct the registration exercises there's been claims about easy announcing numbers of total numbers of regis registered persons which is like double or far more in excess than the actual numbers that were registered the ec has explained but some can't seem to have an understanding um let's begin with uh one of the people on the on the ground um dr oku uh boy what what what do you what do you see from your own going around and following some of this report what do you find is going on yeah um something so um i've been doing some monitoring uh last wednesday spent about three or four hours visited about ten centers you know lejoku has about 242 polling stations one of the biggest constituencies and as we speak legislation has been done at 50 cents and um you know this is a constituency that has had a mixed history you know sometimes things have been very quiet sometimes he's been quite um agitated and all that and i'm happy to mention that for now the exercise has been very smooth um i have spoken to all our folks that really if you have any issue let us know as when i say as i'm in leadership so that we would approach the appropriate quarters and outside one classical example which could have led to violence or confusion when we started there was a particular police registration center police station that was pitched by the ec right behind the palace for market in fact where you have the traffic light and traditionally that place has been a center in the electrical constituency but this time the center was in the ladle to phone rule and let me say that the two municipalities have had issues with boundary and this was um trying to raise attention so my guys saw my people call me a dog i want to go and disrupt the process i want to get them out physically say you don't need to do that the guys there were sent by some people so we have to go to that source which is the letter commission and get them to speak to them it was not easy but i continued to maintain that position and finally the letter commission together with the regional and national office were able to relocate so this was a registration center that did two days of registration in danjukuku and relocated to another site without bloodshed so a leadership is important but let me just add quickly that there are three broad categories of people in every political party in fact you find them in churches any part of the community you visit we have people followers who are do so can easily be managed in fact sometimes they have facilities docility even can result in problems then you have the middle people who are very moderate i mean you need to um it's quite it's not difficult to manage them like those are people they also can be a little bit difficult because you have to convince them and the third kind is like you know the hawks those who are quite aggressive by nature and it usually takes leadership and some management to keep them under control and in such times it is important that all stakeholders want to mistake others leaders of political parties leaders of the church you see when the country becomes turbulent everybody will be engulfed so these things should not be left only to the electoral commission or political leaders journalists anyone in this country who loves this country must make it a duty to speak to um people who are activists in politics that look um at the end they you really cannot tell the mind of the voter in the queue something i have met people who go like dog i mean my secretary gave me the data yesterday we've registered over 80 000 people electric goku with many more days to go and sometimes people go like dog so how many are yours and i go like one really how can it tell the mind of the voter in the queue you know so the point is that you must be careful for all you know the gentleman already you perceive as being an opponent really in the mind is for you right and it will be suicidal to try and take a fight when the person really would have come to help you so um something and we also you know you know the ndc is actually uh through its youth organizer and later as emphasized by some of the other leaders in the party have said that they have seen you know violence perpetrated against their members they have shown videos and pictures of people with uh assault wounds on them among others and their youth leader is actually you know when i had to charge the the youth to as it were you know take their their destiny into their own hands i don't want to repeat the words they use you know yeah and the national peace council issued the caution the ndc says you can't be doing that you should call the npp to order because they are members or have done this against us you don't do a general statement saying the political parties ndc mpp you should stop this and stop that the christian council done a similar thing they are not happy john cena says they are fighting the trinity you know uh the ec uh the government and the is it the security that's what he calls the trinity that everybody is against them yeah um i think you followed our political history for a long time so you know that there is this tendency for parties in the position to claim that the military the police and all that are under the influence of the state i remember like yesterday when you guys were in opposition yeah so i think in order to build a a nation that would be uh that would not be interrupted by chaos or any other means i think for the mdc for me as a political activist i would assume from day one that is because their interests might not be saved looking at where i come from that's why they might be shouting in the same way they also would assume that is because of our interest so when it comes to such matters it is important that third parties and i believe in engagement you know sometimes someone can be crying it might not be justified but engaging the person helps to reduce the temperature and all we are interested in is like when we come to covet you want to engage in temperature reduction measures because even if their claim is unfounded the shouting and the and the threats and you know please versus justice this is a conversation that always can create some tension well someone can say really you can leave them i mean they can't do anything but you don't want the temperature to be elevated right so and third part is like the crystal cancer is to try and engage them hear them and then try to you know sometimes an engagement makes them press go down but really i've said it all the time i'll repeat it it is not the register that will determine your feet as a political part is your record it is not your vengeance or your venom it is your vigilance and their vigilance is what picks those abnormalities or anomalies and thirdly it is not the politics it's the policies we should stick to this and if these things work repeat those three things again it's not what it's not the register but it's your record it is obviously not your vengeance or venom but your vigilance throughout the process and thirdly the politics will not help you it's your policies okay your programs interesting from george um the ndc has a litany of circumstances of brutalities and it is the step that the police is not acting and its members are being disturbed what's what's your way to resolving these issues well something once again let me say good morning to our viewers and let me say good morning to the dean of the school of dirty tricks who is on the show and the point has to be made here that an attempt to want to generalize the political temperature rising in country and say both political parties will be a disingenuous attempt by any group i hold the personal view that the national peace council should be disbanded because they are the biggest threats to the peace and stability of our democracy reason being the hypocritical stance of that organization they always seek to make equivalence the basis of their statements what has raised the temperature first and foremost the mp4 israel nearly crippled a city member of parliament by individuals and woodlawns the national peace council did not find its rights to criticize the npp they waited and held their crew till the murder of an innocent ghanaian citizen in banda and look the issues in bandar did not start today let me give you a little history of the issues in banda the end before banda honourable ahmed ibrahim is our first deputy equipment parliament this issue is that there have been a varietarian community that has lived in banda for close to 100 years these issues came to a head in 2016. when the then mpp candidate and current candidate now john duncan said he was not going to allow the voterians who live in banga to vote anymore and that they should leave and go back home ghana is a unitary state the then commander police commander by names representing who is currently the commander at swami so he's still in the police as you can call him threatening to arrest joe duncan for his acts which sought to raise the political temperature as we got into this political season again you have joe duncan say that he would not allow the voterians to take part in the registration process and actually led to the bending of the houses of this ghanaian citizens because they were claimed to be people of altar extraction led by jordan for the mpp's parliamentary candidates the peace council was deaf blind and mute at the time the minority caucus in parliament visited the voluntarian caucus of the voters ghanaian citizens living in the bandar community and commiserated with them post that visit there was an attack on the residence of the member of parliament for the area honorably by muhammad led by joe duncan again in that attack the younger brother of honorable ibrahim ahmed was attacked and hit with a kajal it was this action that led to people in bandar agency which is the hometown of honorable america where that happened to mount a roadblock and say that they were going to stop the vehicle that came into banda and attacked the honorable member of parliament in his house now a reprisal to that roadblock was set up by joe duncan and his people in a town called caprondo it is at that roadblock that they said every vehicle headed for bandar hinco they were going to attack a vehicle from which headed for a bandaging was the vehicle in which this young man this young teacher graduated graduate was in he was pulled out and stabbed to death so if we follow the sequence of events who has occasioned a rise in the temperature who is the perpetrator enforced and and the one fostering violence in this registration exercise you are saying you are you are saying you are saying that this particular individual you are mentioning there is evidence that he is responsible for all of this and yet he is not arrested nothing has happened to him is that what you are saying because he is the parliamentary candidate for the mpp he has a group of problems who have either identified themselves as invisible do you think do you think sincerely that it is possible for any citizen in ghana today to conduct themselves the way you suggest he has done and there is evidence to link that facing to that kind of activity criminal activity and that person because they are an mp belonging to the government side will not be arrested and will not face the law that is the breakdown or that you have in this country that is the illegality and irresponsibility that has been fostered by no less a person than the president himself because the president sent a signal to the hoodlums and tags in his party when the ayah also was commissioned and mr ernest was part of that permissions and the president rubbished that report and refused to prosecute those people in doing that the president has sent notice that he would not prosecute anybody within his own has any report be launched with the police about uh the gentleman you refer to and they have not acted with the evidence you suggest something something it will blow your mind if i told you that one of the principal alleged perpetrators of the murder of the young man three days before that had been arrested by the police with unregistered weapons in his vehicle the police officer who carried out the arrest has been ordered to try to proceed on a transfer for arresting that gentleman and the gentleman was released upon a call which came from abbas and the gentleman came back to the police station where he was arrested with the weapons and brags that his party is in power okay he is alleged to be one of the masterminds my first thing my question was specific about this individual you have named so many times and suggested that not even suggested stated categorically that he is behind hoodlums he is responsible for the mayhem and all the criminal acts that is going on in banda has there been a report i'm telling you that the police actually arrested one of his known associates with unregistered weapons three days to the mega of the chartering the police officer who carried out that arrest has been asked to proceed on leave you refer to this return to an alleged you know accomplice or someone who is alleged to be connected but this this mp you don't refer to him as alleged to be involved because i have spoken i have spoken to the first deputy who of the minority who is the mp for bandha honourable ahmed ibrahim and he confirms to me that goddance personally led the team to his house that assaulted his brother which is what lifted and or raised the temperature in the community again i'm saying to you that today the current police commander for swami division in 2016 you have you have said that already you have said that already some george i i think i think that it is only fair that uh because we don't have joe duncan to be responding to the categorical statements you make about him it is only fair that you you you if you have heard that he is alleged to be connected you say so rather than be categorical and say he is the one and i doubt that in this country today what is the ndc's way what is the ndc's way of bringing the tension down is it what the youth uh organizer told your youth to do as in retaliate no the national youth organizer of the ndc did not say we should retaliate he said we should protect ourselves as best possible something i believe that you as a senior journalist who is on top of your job in this country have taken serious personal safety precautions since the death of amateur have you not even before that fantastic because you have seen the the kinds of attacks and the intolerance on journalists in this country since 2017. it is in the same thing that the ndc youth organizer is telling members of the ndc that we cannot seek or expect justice from governments that see it is seemingly the biggest perpetrator of violence and political violence in our in in the in the fourth republic we cannot seek any justice from them and we have to take our own security into our own hands we cannot and look something okay and give you examples of my own constraints just last week friday a so-called team of national security operatives attempted to attack me it took a detachment of military and police individuals to intervene in that matter when we got into the bottom of the matter these individuals were not actually from national security but tags of the npp who are using national security as a cover so this is an issue let's see what's the country let's hear let's hear let's hear what uh kokubako has to say about this and having monitored the posture of both parties in these matters what's what will be your your reaction see since 1996 there has never been any registration exercise that we haven't had such problems and challenges since 1996 yeah they are still busting people and their ec says they should stop exactly ma afarijan used to complain about that if you read this report this is the crab report of the panel the venerable vcrac crab it's all captured here the political parties particularly the two main ones i'm not excluding the others but we are talking here of magnitude the scope and coverage involve themselves in such activities transporting people from one place to another place to go and register and ties in foreign elements to come in and register encouraging minors to register and doing all sorts of funny things that's all here afraid refer to that as what contributed to the bloatedness of the register same conclusions captured here in spite of the introduction of biometric technology the challenges remain in different forms and the report captures it then of course violence i have a national security report here this is for 2004 on registration i just read two paragraphs npp and ndc supporters nearly clashed at saint kizito junior secondary school and islamic preparatory and primary school centers over attempts by minors and aliens to register registration officials complaining about anger and mega law that's not relevant but this is the most relevant muhammad sham elias sampsini i might not pronounce the names well and sham and abdul roth were arrested on 16th march 2004 by gushing police on suspicion of involvement in firing guns during confrontation between ndc supporters led by zibrim imoro and mpp counterparts at near refuge registration center gushibu on 16th march 2014 2004. the softwares have been granted babe another one tamale one bashuru muhammad an associate of the sons of allah abdulrahman aliyah scott npp regional nothing regional and chairman pulled a revolver and fired indiscriminately at kuliku immediate united primary school registration center upon being informed registration officials were on strike the regional police command met political parties representatives and impressed upon them the need for peace during before during and after the elections the check the reports for 2008 2012 and 2016 similar inc incidents of violence all sides both sides are involved in that and it is because everybody is seeking to do those things we just spoke about when there was no basis for it my question is what has been the history of enforcement we're just ready some people were bailed what happened to charges and trials because we treat it as a political thing and it idea so don't enforce don't go too extreme you arrest them you build them you know no prosecution no conviction no sentence we've shown the seats for impunity that culture of impunity and in this case i'm not excluding any of them i'm not in the position to challenge the accounts some george has put out here in real science i'm not i've read it i've seen it we must ask the police look in all this registration military and police personnel are deployed to flash flash points right already intelligence knows which areas are flash points and we deploy police and military personnel there they arrest sometimes but they let them go after a while no trials nothing why wouldn't we continue to have such incidents now we are talking of a young man who is supposed to have been killed married i appeal to the ghana police please it isn't as if it's the beginning but this might not be the last one so please can they investigate this particular incident and rest apprehend the perpetrators and for once prosecute it's important okay i'm not going to sit here and do you know a selective analysis of the issue the truth is that both parties and their agents in the field are guilty of this offense and jesus christ put it well it says apart from the corruption of the electoral commission officials that is the temporary staff especially because of the fact that they are temporary staff you know you're talking of some incident of officials having been arrested yeah i am sure if you check they may be even temporary staff more often than not it is the temporal staff that engage in those things jesus christ pointed it out the panel that that is part of the problem for the ec in terms of the corruption of the process from the registration period something ought to stop something must be done about this and i'm appealing to the police to take this bandai incident as a classic case there'll be many okay as for the pointer by it's being harassed and your eyes i'm going to ignore it for a while for today because i don't want to mix the picture okay let's stay focused i didn't want to interrogate that issue because it's not the issue i have been on joy and we have done uh resource coalition and called elections almost every election year if i were to tell you what some of us go through after we have called the elections you won't believe it yes just call it what we believe it we don't get to sleep in our homes yes okay anyway um justice wood said in the abu ramadan case first one that if the right to vote is important in participatory democracy the right to register is even more fundamental and critical it is the golden key that opens the door to exercise the right votes unquote this golden key that opens the right uh that opens the door uh to exercise that right why do the political parties like occultists told us a while ago boy told us a while ago his people are asking him how many of the people registered so far are on our side what a question the police held meetings with the parties and gave warnings asking the question is that all you can do just give warnings and end there because we have seen evidence of brutality evidence of criminal acts that have gone on so the police may want to take action and now we take a quick break we return i share some of your views by way of text messages and whatsapp messages that you have brought in and then we will proceed to look at whether or not schools should close because of covet 19. that's been detected in some of the schools then after that we will deal with whether or not gbc can win the fight that it has started against the communications ministry we'll be right back [Music] yeah welcome back this is nice foliage your most authoritative news analysis platform and here on news file we put ghana first uh share some of your messages with you and uh for those of you who heard for the first time sam judge referring to cuckoo as the dean of something uh don't take it serious it's a joke they share because sam george himself is a member of that school according to him so those of you who felt the step by that and wanted me to hold him to it that's the explanation i can give you now prince henry in cofforidia says was it not was it not the same best set that gave birth to passports and ghana card so if i can't use webset that gave bev to passport and ghana card for voters for this fishing then there is no way passport and ghana card should be used for the new votes register okay uh henry i hope you heard that the extra layer that you used to acquire the passport and this thing got to you is what is fortified then um this one uh kokubaku really hit hard at ghana police for not dealing with violence during registration and voting uh he hit hard make her feel victories thank you noble judge says i love the submissions of kokubaku and the police luxity and the wake up call to them to act now amma before says it's amazing how some george creates the impression that one can cause so much harm and walk free the lies and exaggeration is suffocating if they have evidence they should bring it to the police and see if the so-called mp will be left to walk around town a b mensah one says it's so sad for an innocent soul to be lost just because of voter registration oh ghana um [Music] okay then says until the populists understand that political parties are associations like ngos not worth dying for this mayhem will not stop stop blaming the police we bribe our way through justice and cry wolf when things don't go well musa avatar says in my layman's understanding of the law the supreme court has absolutely got it wrong i read your concerns as well kofi abuchi kofi bento and so many lawyers expressed worries about the decision of the apex court i essentially have difficulty appreciating this ruling what it means is that ghana card and password which is the only requirement for identification by ec is illegal really technically you cannot get both documents without birth certificate where is natural law so that's the question you are asking you say that truth be told there is a breakdown of law and order and it's scary tax aligned to the current administration act with impunity just because they are parties in power national security is very important state institutions have now become a home of party tax it's scary manchester bruce uh as always from takara they says the art of being wise is knowing what to overlook some georgie continued doing politics with everything didn't the ndc swear that the registration would never ever take place prejudice will lead them into an abyss let's call a spade spade read just one or two more samuel bryant boy being says that uh for clarity those who stab the guy are not mpp fanatics the fact of the matter is that an ndc mp was attacked and in retaliation a barrier was mounted by his supporters to prevent people from entering the town this confusion led to the death of the innocent young man uh we can confirm from asempa uh ubi who spoke to the perpetrators is it who spoke to okay the perpetrators are not supporters of the mp uh thank you uh thank you for your message also now let's um get to deal with some other matters but robert manson says the chiefs could have prevented this but because of their partisan politics that's why we are here today um res well my brother francis ahen afo says isn't the police primarily resp responsibility to protect humans and property do they see the violence all over the place why can't they execute their mandate to protect lives and property ghana police be the professionals you are trained to be and bala cough scoff you says i'm afraid to go out there and register cause there is no social distancing with the places i have seen so far uh it has improved very dramatically so if you look around you may you may get a place that you may feel uh confident in going to register initially you know i suggested until i have seen certain conditions i'm not attempting it i my place they have gone so i'm waiting for another phase to see if it improves better then i may go and register all right so now you may have heard a lot about what is going on in the schools let's listen to some of the commentary in the course of the week about covert 19 in schools it is worthy and all that ladies and gentlemen do not be woodwind by president of wado and the mpp do not buy that lie it is not about washi this government doesn't care about what see they don't give a hoot about washi this intransigence their belligerence you know in keeping shs students in schools which are recorded positive cases is to make room for those students to be registered as part of the ongoing voter registration exercise and nothing more that is it when they are done with the registration if they don't heed our call today including schools and if parents don't take their destinies their own destinies and their lives of their children into their own hands and go into those schools and bring out their children to their homes when they are done with this registration market on the wall they will close the schools we cannot exchange an examination with the life of our students i think life is so precious and we shouldn't wait for 10 20 students to die before we realize that it is far more important to be alive than to get the greed so we we for life there is no option so that when they are in school and somebody is not infected for that one it will be right for them to pass on the virus to their friends who are not infected so if the issue is mass testing then they should go on with the masters whether they are going home or they are staying in school but if they go home and they will infect their parents then whilst they are in school too they can they can they can infect their friends or is that an education service trying to tell us that all the children in school all the students have applied their profit 19. and we had about 300 or so plus teams from the national regional and districts who are working all through the country but for the past two weeks we've been out there doing that work and fortunately we have been able to make sure that we pick all the issues that needs to be addressed but some of them they are said that you can readily address them for others you may have to come back and then address them another key area as part of ensuring that everything goes well is training and giving information to the teachers and the health and the staff who will be handling as well as the children subsequently we've done what we call master training we've done our original training we've done our district training starting today the training for teachers and heads of schools and selected teachers are going to run for the next week or two to ensure that we all have the basic understanding and the basic things that we need to do the monitoring is an ongoing once we come and we do our reports and we we do the feelings and we fill the gaps and other things the next round of monitoring will start hopefully next week or the week after we want to ensure that we as much as possible any issues that come up we are on top of the issues and be able to address them right so that was uh professor question um you have had the education ministry you have had the minister of health among others very emphatic that the closure is not the way to go you've had also the coalition of consent teachers we've had nagarat we've had not all issuing statements asking for one thing or the other there's also been a parents teacher association also issue a statement expressing concerns but when you speak to the parents individually when you speak to some of the teachers individually like ghana connect did on joy yesterday you will find that they are divided dr cowboy yeah something so let me we're seeing the numbers in the senior high schools yes uh how does it look now take us through again and then tell us why closure is not an option all right so in ghana now we've had a total cumulative of about 20. what about 26 000 cases 125 26 125 with 85 percent having recovered and we've had 139 debts which comes to a mortality rate of 0.5 percent and i always like for us to appreciate where we stand in the league of nations so our mortality 0.5 means that for every thousand cases of covet in this country we can lose five people and nigeria is doing 2.2 percent it means for every thousand cases they lose 22. the u.s is doing four percent mortality they lose 40 for every thousand canada is doing 80 so i mean our situation like i always put it is one that is inspiring we are doing our best to make sure that we protect lives and save people from on from a variable now it is important to mention reiterate some of the very important measures we took as a country before reopening schools first of all we made proposals come from all stakeholders that had anything to do with education as to how to do the reopening so vice chancellors ghana teacher education workers you know nagrat not civil society all these proposals were received and then after receiving them we sat at the table to see how to harmonize and get the best measure for our schools in fact wayek also was engaged to tell the state the things they would like to see in place before allowing students to write their exams this was a very meticulous process which we committed ourselves to now beyond this we also had preschool conditions things that had to be met before opening schools in total we had to deal with 18 606 institutions for jhs and shs all these institutions 18 000 were fumigated both public and private the population we were we are dealing with at jhs and shs is 1.123 million let's say 1.3 million people jhs shs both teachers teaching and non-teaching stuff so something is a huge operation where we have to make sure that all these people had at least three reasonable face masks all these schools were giving veronica markets and forgive me but i have to mention a few things just for people to appreciate the logistical input across ghana sixty four thousand seven hundred veronica buckets were deployed at the cost of about 32 million gunner cities thermometer guns 48 000 pieces at a cost of average 48 million were deployed across the country 5.2 million face masks all these were done and liquid soap and all of that now as we speak as a 13th july that's end of monday normally it comes in at monday end of the day then they put the figures together we had 161 confirmed cases in the over a thousand shs across the country 161. now so the question i ask myself immediately is that is it news to record a case at a school something and let me by the way say that when i hear people say that close the schools or we have to let the kids go home i'm not in a hurry to come back to those people i want to take the opportunity to do some education because more often than not when you give people education they calm down immediately you have a situation where as a country we've done about 340 000 tests seven percent has come out as positive now what it means is that on the face of it or based on the data our pre-balance rate average percentage for 100 any people you meet is seven percent as a country so when you come to you go to any office or you go to the market or you go to the streets and pick hundred guardians you are likely to pick the seven you can add plus three or minus three you can pick two people who are covered positive or ten who are complete positive it falls within the statistics so now that's why i wasn't protect or surprised let me say that but that may be a little better but i wasn't surprised when i was told that when they did some contact racing at multimedia they picked five cases assuming you have 100 workers here it means it's five percent it is because of that assumption that a colleague by you might be positive without showing sensitivities that is why you are wearing the mask and i'm also wearing the mask we are not wearing this mask for fashion the enemy is invisible you can't see with your eyes right but preparing or protecting yourself comes with results and so the idea is that if i have coveted and i'm positive normally the first three to seven days is the incubation period the period that i can get sick that three to seven days i can i can infect all this in fact the studies have shown that for the first 11 days even if you're asymptomatic you can infect all this so if i am positive and i wear my mask the risk of having my the viruses in the air is reduced through the mask has reduced its risk of inhaling the viruses by wearing the mask so after 14 days if i remain asymptomatic i would have recovered by the definition by not having any symptoms and also not being able to infect all this but within that two-week period the two of you wouldn't have contracted a virus okay because you're engaged in a risk reduction behavior so the kids were giving all this mask because as a country and as a group we are all aware that once people step out their risk is higher than in their bedrooms and so if you record a case at a school when you say why did we record then that one is not too good but when you ask what are the measures then it is a genuine one are we enforcing the protocols and i've seen cinebacco holding the guidelines i also have it i don't want to warn you and you find that some of the parents their main worry yeah it's actually about lack of communication absolutely by the school administration absolutely they hear that my child or my world in accra girls has been infected yeah they hear it not through a nice communication channel yeah they get it through the media yeah they are seeking information about it and everybody is quiet in the school i get it so they naturally get agitated yeah then they come to the school to to pick to uh you know demonstrate so to speak yeah um something you can have we had a very meticulous arrangement in terms of reporting the case first of all the school nurse who lives with the house master with the head teacher community communicate to the district director of education and the district of health and inform the parents then after all this take measures like isolated just like you did at multimedia disinfecting treating the person tracing contacts all these have been put in place you realize with that cargo situation that almost most of them were done the kids were isolated sent together east you have contact racing 314 put list their results came feather people isolated but most of the time if you are dealing with human beings you can have 100 arrangements not all will be fully executed so we realize that the information flow like you're saying was not as was put on paper or agreed with them so what we've done the the president set up a subcommittee my mother itself i'm part of the committee to make sure that the arrangements are actually enforced and executed and to monitor the situation i think that's the problem yeah the enforcement yes yes the monitoring yes look i'm i'm driving to court every morning yeah and i'm seeing students and after court that's afternoon hours i'm seeing them holding hands acting as if there's nothing to care about meanwhile they have been handed masks so i practically stop and ask them why are you not wearing your mask they say oh i'll wait and i insist they should wait but they work i thank you for stopping and telling them to work you see i think like i was saying because you are dealing with one of the biggest logistical operations in terms of deploying all these items controlled and you are also depending on offices of the state united states people who are like teachers directors disease control officers there are over 330 monitoring teams across the country but really something once you are depending on individuals who might have different levels of efficiency levels of proactiveness you get look we were in a conference call the head of chass he's the headmaster for tia media in fact i don't know whether because he's the head he had followed the protocol so rigidly that they have a covered team made up of his deputy head chest the accountant the security like a complete one and he told us in the conference that all their colleagues have been told to activate this committee so you know the monetary we've put in place is also helping so that whenever you identify any insufficiency or weakness quickly you compare them to michigan right instead and one admission they made which you have also made is that the students wear the mask when they enter the classroom immediately they have some 1 hour or 30 seconds of 30 minutes of break when you meet them the mask is coming off when they're closed for those who are their students their mask is off no government like they have in u.s any place no government can win the war alone without cooperation from citizens and by the way let me conclude by saying that when sammy james goes to the nbc headquarters to give press conference his risk of getting coveted virus the connections is higher than if he had stayed at home now those who came to pick and cover the event they are exposed if they had stayed they are more exposed being at the press conference than if you are staying at home the point i'm making is that it is when you have more or less inclusive us that you forget that you are virtually working as a political party okay once you ask other entities so yeah too the the most important question people need an answer to yeah is that from the very start i had bright simmons on this platform and we're discussing we look at other countries when they were trying to reopen yes we discovered that they had protocols yes and the protocols included everybody in the country knew if one student tested positive in a class the class would be suspended if say four or five students in the school tested positive the entire school will be shut down what is our protocol something thank you very much let me say that like i said the current positivity rate for our data is around seven percent i don't want to go into the figures for someone saying oh dr cooper says it's even less than 0.01 what to record it so it doesn't matter every positive case is important and that's why for each case we isolate treat and contact trees and order i mentioned it at the same party last time and i was misquoted as saying that when we have 15 to close down the schools the point i want to make is that when you are managing such a situation it's a dynamic one each case will be assessed on this merit but there are things you look out for and this disclaimer should be absolute i am not saying it's a government policy but from the public health point of view the two things you normally look out for is the number of cases you've had in terms of percentage compared to your national statistics that's the first point so that if you are getting seven percent positivity for the country and in a school you are getting 30 or 40 positivity it means you it is a red flag that's how you call it reflect meaning that you need special action the second one which i mentioned which was not quoted which is really the most important is that are most of your cases symptomatic or mobility so if you pick let's say i thank god almost all the 55 cases are cargills virtually all of them were asymptomatic just like your five cases after multimedia but if you pick 55 cases a more than half are morbid morbid means that requiring oxygen being put in the hospital it requires extraordinary steps or actions and so these are things that those managing the situation will be looking out for and i say this so that we don't send the message that this government is saying no matter what happens even if and god forbid all kids are dying they should stay in school that is not the position the position cannot be rigid just as the virus itself is not rigid okay the virus is a freedom all right so it will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis on what happens and we don't have a particular you know protocol as saying published so that you know as we have heard of other places if one student in a class gets infected or if two students or if three students in a class that class is suspended then if say about 10 students in the whole school get infected then they shut down we will assess the situation on a case-by-case basis more importantly whether it's morbid or it's a question of symptomatic people forgive me just a second to say that one who picks a case or who you present to is part of the protocol so we have a detailed protocol from suspicion to confirmation to actions post confirmation all that is well detailed what i'm saying is that it is the assessment of the school's states that will determine actions like either re and cleansing protocols aggravating restrictions or a total closure then we must be careful because if we and we don't say it people might think that as it is now there's really no pro should we get a case in a school you are lost okay there are fine meticulous detailed protocols from the nurse to who to call the hospital that has been like let me let me get some george's views and then cucumber but the question has been asked if you can look at it briefly and there's another surgeon who is the head of uh kofo noche who is also us bringing the same situation but we have seen that companies are shut yes because of covert 19. yes why is that principle not applied to the schools so the answer is very simple there's a good reason why multimedia isn't shut down but let's say people could boast both shutdown if you get a case and you don't get closer to the experts to be advised your interventions might be either under below what it is or above the point is that ghana has a ministry of health my boss was positive the place was taken through the protocols this infection i was still going to work the place wasn't closed down and i'm still naked so the point is that some institutions took actions without reference to the experts what the policy government has put in is that if you get a case get to those who are managing they would advise you well when you talk about workplaces here like in multimedia and i'll confess as most of you heard me from the very start when the covert broke i came in sat here i asked myself am i safe then i had to take the decision that it has to be a personal safety protocol now we are adults here we are not children um the children find themselves in a situation where they cannot conduct themselves like we adults will do so the comparison doesn't exactly work and then like you mentioned sometimes i feel like the media yeah it's even one of the front line you know front lines when it comes to covet management you know what let me state this you can't you can stop yeah you can stop school yeah but and you don't lose anything but this one you don't have to the science let me say this if you are following the trajectory of cases in the world the presence of the virus there is absolutely no way this virus will vanish from the global population in the next 24 months i'm saying it in fact absolutely so it means for the next two years there will be cases of sask of two in the world and when i say the word ghana inclusive now what it means is that should you take a position that you want the virus to be out before anybody moves in terms of school work and all that it means your kids must be home for minimum two years you don't want the virus to be out you want to get to a stage where you have a good handle over the virus you know or it would have minimized yeah and we were told um that you know in 18 months yeah would have got into a double situation we as a government have decided to commit resources and logistics into creating a safer environment and ensuring personal safety for kids before putting them in school so that they can finish their program write their exams and move on to the next stage we don't want the presence of a virus in the world's population to determine their future any country that is allowing these people to go to work or allowing them to move out of their homes are doing so knowing very well that the risk like i always say is higher and by the way why is it that the nbc would still go to arabic and make press conferences will not stop working as a political entity okay but i would like to yes so let's have you uh briefly on this subject and goku also make a brief uh statement on it let's hear you um why do you support why do you support teachers and other parents who are calling for a close down something i want to appeal to your sense innate sense of judgment and fairness which i know is established in your studio you have two people who are voting for another thank you for no no that's that's a reason he speaks for as long as he did on this subject if we came to the um gbc mata you will speak more than he he has to because you have better knowledge in the south on the subject than he would have thank you so please go on well i just wanted to establish there are two votes fernando in yesterday you haven't quoted yet so i can't determine where you vote um the the point needs to be made here dr coboy spoke about protocols that have been put in place he speaks about vertical markets i'm sure he'll be the first person to admit that those veronica buckets themselves could become uh attributions for the spread of coverage if they are not managed the protocols around the use of the very buckets are not managed properly because an infected person touching the tax would actually infect every other person who subsequently uses the tax again he makes reference to face masks that have been distributed um what face masks were told n95 face mask by the pro for the ministry of education the evidence does not support that as the truth in fact it was cloth mask that were presented and everybody knows that with the cloth mask after you wash it a number of times its efficiency given the size of the virus is affected again we have a children's act and the children are children's act and joins governments to act in the best interest of children and we say that the best interest of ghanaian children today is to subject them to the mental torture first and foremost even before the health pandemic of covet when you see students for example in cairn usd senior high school who had to hold their own colleague as he died on campus all that girl senior high school uh students who know that their colleagues got infected and the mental trauma that is putting them through the point has to be made here that for me if we had a proper continuous assessment regime like nigeria is doing like kenya is doing it would make sense for us to graduate these children using their continuous assessment and not just one examination again let us look at the basis of the legislation when you look at the legislation that's been put in place governing this this is ai-134 if you read ai 134 on educational institutions which is section 2 and you look at section 2-2 the word operative where they're used as me not shy and now read it says notwithstanding paragraph 2-1 universities other tertiary or training institutions sydney high schools and junior high schools may open an appraisal to accommodate the following students on the specified date and then it goes abcd and all of those things it uses mail may open it means that we need to ask ourselves have we put in place the right framework that is going to allow for the students to be taken care of you may verify the fact that the the government tells us they put in place protocols what happens to these children when they go into the dormitories in their dormitories they do not wear face masks they mingle in their dormitories again you see the junior high school students who go and come every day and bought throttle and are at the risk of infection without necessarily observing the protocols even with the boarding houses not all teaching and non-teaching staff are residents on campus they go home and come back on campus and the possibility of infection is there i honestly hold the view like the ncc does and our public 19 response team has put this up that look the best way to go about this is for government to be proactive by doing mass tests if we must test every child in school yes will be it is expensive but if we want to put the children in school willingly at all costs the best thing to do would be to master the kids and teaching staff and be sure of the status of everybody before they are kept within the confines of the school premises but all of this discussion we've had i honestly do not see the justification for the junior high school students in particular who who have to keep going and coming every day and exposing them to the risk that they've been exposed to something we need to ask ourselves as a country that when we we say we're listening to the experts what have the experts actually said to us what is that what what what what are the the gunner health centers and the four health organizations that recently issued a statement what are they saying to government what is the national council of pta saying to government what is not and not saying what are the teacher unions themselves saying who is government listening to improvement it's engaging the experts and listening to expert advice and engaging in stakeholder consultation all the stakeholders involved here parents the children the medical practitioners are all complaining and saying that look this is an unnecessary unnecessary a risk we're putting the children through and honestly something i know i know that you you have a kid of in senior high school i don't believe you've allowed your kid to go to school because i've seen how how particular you are about the current protocols and i know you want to subject your child to such risk i asked mr er er vincent etc the pr of the ministry of education a direct question on another platform if he would allow his child to go to school he couldn't answer that question and i know you won't allow your child to go to school giving the current protocol because those protocols do not adequately provide protection for your child that has been said in other platforms it's better to miss a great than to dig a grave governments must be sensitive to the plight of the ghanaian child and so let's let's be minded by this even as we go about talking about protocols that have been put in place and saying that we've done the right thing even though boy in his own submission admits that the protocols put in place by government are not sufficient enough to take care or prevent the spread of coverage because he admitted that these kids walk around and they are not always wearing their face mask if even as grown-ups the parents of this kids who work in government institutions the grandparents of these kids who are justices on the supreme court we do not believe that they the justices of the supreme court or the managers at bost will be able to observe the protocols adequately enough until we suspend the courts we shut down the offices because of coming and we think that our grandchildren and children will be smart enough to observe the protocols then the logic on that from government is really rich okay let me just make a point there bring a point of information the courts have been very reluctant to shut down even under the the lock down so you may have heard one secular or the other but still they insist that the court should continue to afraid and you keep referring to me of course i have not have not made it a private matter the law you read the e.i says the schools may open and that the children may return to school i have spoken to the education ministry and they say that they don't want to encourage too many of the students wanting to opt not to come to school but to take other options but if you have a peculiar situation for your ward or your child the straight way you talk to the school administration or you write to them nicely for a good arrangement with your child or your ward and they can go to school perhaps just go and take the exam or setting arrangement that fits them so the law is permissive it says the school may open and the children may return look at your circumstance and exercise your option i as a someone who has responsibility for someone in shs i've exercised the option appropriately and dealt with the school in the interest of my uh the child that i have responsibility for okay so uh cocoon says that she will give the time to you guys say something say something see you know uh you see the appears the teacher unions if you have watched it does appear they are unanimous on this matter that shut the schools unless the children go home we have a statement by parents association so to speak who also say chatterton let's go home some ask why can't you do like nigeria they say we the school year for 2020 is lost we are not doing wassi um we understand kenya there are other places where the school year has been declared lost why can't you do the same see a quick one the is the national council of ptas well my checks with the gas resulted in a certain conclusion the credentials of doubtful validity apparently they are not part of the scheme of affairs of the gs to whoever is handling and i strive to seek recognition he has not yet had it so he really doesn't speak for any pts gs apparently deals with the ptas of the individual schools and that's how things should be it's a ghanaian how about the teacher unions what do you mean i was just moving one step by step the chitchat minions very credible ones with integrity they were even consulted relative to their reopening their roadmap i've seen documents to that effect and people i respect hugely they will not underestimate anything they see but when they made a statement to the fact that there were no pps in the schools did they give us specifics just a few schools and once the minister's the ministry's attention was drawn to it they quickly moved in and supplied did they give specifics to the schools did they name their names no we don't find it there yes it worries me no but they gave a list of of things that are that remain the fact give no no no no give specifics first of all don't forget they are not administrators of the schools but you they could be on the ground so do have evidence give specifics if you are not going to communicate that thing to the people who are managing the process but you want the whole world to hear including the media just give specifics because i have followed up on some instances and i've seen wheel bills signed by directors regional directors of education relative to supply of their logistics whereas if you go on social media you see this school or that school doesn't have but i have seen and sometimes it depends on those managing the supply system okay it depends on those things so see those bodies the credible bodies i think must change the mood of communication relative to those managing the process you know i say this there's so much fear being generated out there by some sections of the society this is a novel pandemic we know it comes with some apprehension so if you play on the keyboards of people's emotions particularly patience appearance emotions it's chaotic the protocol if i'm wrong okay boy can correct me that if a student gets positive a test positive is the particular student's parents that must be informed people expect that no you should call the entire pta and tell them it has its own implications so we the media too when we pick that story and we blow it out there it creates fear and panic no but it is the students in the first place who hear it and then send the information out yes and they get panicky like some george says they get panicky they they they don't have the state of mind to do what we expect them to do in school yeah you don't think so we have a level of responsibility to exercise okay that's for the source i'm not even prepared to blame the students if i'm a journalist i would want to know of course so if they hear anything they might not be sure don't forget that they would hear something no medica evidence that what they have heard is true or not that's why if you are told or i'm told i have to be very responsible i manage the news or if i put it out there creates panic increased fear there's that element of emotion sentiment everything involved we are apparent and it's true you feel immediately a bit you know fearful all right so i believe that this is a new situation we are confronted with if i checked the records the way the roadmap was put out the consultations and engagements that were made fantastic but operationally they certainly will be challenges and difficulties it is how we all manage the communication that will be able to resolve some of these matters that's the way i see it all right yes uh please just a minute or two and then we take a break and return to deal with the other issue forgive me but people like some george and his people didn't want the schools to even reopen so he can say he has a perception of what the poor state of mind was not only the nbc like nbc they didn't even want the school yeah and i think but i think sometimes we should be careful about certain things because people in the ndc are no are are citizens i guess because of that intrinsic bias all right the republican party that we're against why this is even a political issue all right okay he is convinced but you see there's a video i've seen from macra girls when he brought those seven students that had recovered it was amazing i got goosebumps when i watched you could see that these were students who were more than ready to welcome and reintegrate their colleagues and we're celebrating like soldiers that have gone to war and won the battle that is the state of mind the hell of the character it starts today i was in fact i got you could see them shout to the arrival of the bus running to the bus to pick their friends and bring them back to school look must tasty no country in the world if you appreciate the dynamics of the virus would invest in testing everybody eight hundred thousand a population of one point three million if you test all you can be given you can get about let's say five thousand cases out of the five thousand less than a thousand would be something uh will be symptomatic you would have spent hours going after people that are low risk what is done everywhere is to test either those who are contacts or to those who have symptoms that fit in the kids definition and by the way ghana has done 340 tests it's more than about three four countries in west africa combined i mentioned the last time nigeria is doing 807 tests per million angola is doing three or four egypt is 2003. we are doing over ten thousand it's only south africa i've seen that has gone ahead of ghana with about 30 000 so the testing regime is one that is impressive we can do more but bottom line nobody should create the impression that all parents and this is also important senior anytime i see a parent who expresses worry there are two things immediately i know that i need to give more information because insufficient information on the dynamics of the virus is a foundation for panic and anxiety which is true for all people so we are not in a hurry to contest or fight people who say why not close their schools we have to give more education so they appreciate what is happening by the way the students who are the virus either they brought a virus from their communities that it came from or pick the virus in that environment that's right two things now those who want to go for they see their kids the risk in the population is not any lower than the risk in secondary schools so we must see it as a national risk which would take personal precautions to execute in nigeria people have said why don't you go like nigeria i don't want to say the lazy man's approach okay but not opening the schools means that they wouldn't need to invest in all these things all right and germany let me use soccer to conclude you see when all leads stopped one country started playing but with some measures to reduce risk and later what happened the others followed they followed learning from the the measures put in place by germany to reduce risk and so that is the way to go the fact that a particular country refuses to um let's real preschools doesn't mean that is the best way to go of course we have been told about other countries which are also doing what we are doing so i'm listening to an interview from health workers these are health workers from the east where we have our coverage center they said initially when they were told to be volunteers for treating managing coffee they virtually ran away they didn't want to be part but after training and education now when they hear that case has arrived they run to the case it's the same thing we need to do for our parents and i can assure parents that okay that this government is going to put in place is going to um ensure that all the protocols put in place are enforced rigidly so that their children finish school and finish in time they've done about three weeks now it's about five to six weeks to go all right the same measures that have taken us through the three weeks will take us to the end and the kmus incident is unfortunate it's been investigated but we should be careful not to put that in a copy related death we should not mix the issues okay uh thank you very much we took a break here uh except that we didn't we also had to point out that some of the parents were livid when they got the information that politicians were allowed access to their children when they were denied access to their children that for the parents really hate them and some of them send us messages personally very angry about that kind of situation we take a break here when we return we'll ask whether gbc will win the fight against the communications ministry to reduce its channels from six to three [Music] i have no application or i don't know of any application by assassin radio which is pending before the nca for allocation of channels on any platform what i am aware of is that there is a huge backlog of applications spanning from 2017 when we took over so this is not a new occurrence but we're faced with a pandemic which makes it difficult for us to even complete the switchover process because of the cost implications on broadcasters so the discussions are what do we do to free up excess capacity right now if the state has need of broadcasting urgent communication to the public it does not have any means of doing so if national security has need of broadcasting urgent communication to the state to the citizens it has no need no means of doing so it is critical for us at this juncture to be faced with a process in which the only platform for broadcasting to the populace the capacity on it is completely used up and so it just makes sense without reading any ulterior motives into it to work to create additional capacity on it in the event that that capacity is needed some george you have been speaking about this and raising constitutional questions about it what exactly do you say has gone amiss of course we know that the gbc itself has written to us for this decision to be rescinded we have seen the workers of gbc who have started some forms of demonstration at their premises what exactly are we dealing with thank you very much samson um we're dealing with an unnecessary attack on the state broadcaster by the government and if you listen to the minister let me just show you what that track is my submission will be three-pronged legal technical political the legal basis if you read paragraph four of the minister's letter to gbc she says you will therefore be required to consolidate your programming in line with this directive now when the minister asks gbc to consolidate programming she's going into the issue of editorial discretion and policy of gbc but article 1624 of the constituencies editors and publishers of newspapers and other institutions of the mass media tv and radio included shall not be subject to controller interference by government this is the legal basis for me to say that the minister is acting in excesses of her power this whole discussion on dtt is one that commenced much earlier uh before she came into office it was shared at the time by their minister eduardo many obama had several stakeholder engagements rounds of meetings with stakeholders without any taking any allowance and all of that and brought us to a position where we are today the minister should have seen the ds and the restaurant switch over happened in when 2020 that has not happened now the minister in the sound bites you play said we need redundancy on the network and that when government needs to broadcast information in times of a pandemic like yeah government has no platform that again is incorrect and factually cannot be accepted the state broadcaster is gbc when the president did his 10 addresses on covet to the nation that was channeled to the people through gdbc and other private media establishments it cannot be said that the state broadcaster exists and government does not have a platform to air his views to the ghanaian people in fact six channels on that gtt network are at the back and call of the state that is why they are called the state broadcaster again the argument on redundancy and the need to drop the minister contradicts herself she says the the multiplex has 40 channels the 40 channels are full and so we need to create redundancy by taking three of gbc's channels and one channel from crystal tv that is a technically flawed argument it makes no sense technically because the multiplex there are two multiplexes at the head and as we have today each of those multiplexers have a capacity to run 20 channels if they're running 40 channels you cannot say that you need to drop 8 to 35 channels so that they might the multiplex work properly the capacity of the multiplex is 40 channels again in saying that you need to create redundancy by taking off channels the minister comes back to tell us that there are other applications on her table that need to be addressed so the argument here is you are taking the channels actually from gbc to reallocate them to private individuals so then that that argument that defeats the argument of redundancy that she's making in fact when you talk about redundancy on the dtt platform it has nothing to do with the number of channels the minister just as recently as three months ago through her agency the ncaa approved roon to me tv and is still giving approvals for more tv channels you know your headline is full your multiplex is full yet you are giving out more channels now you want to come and take the channels from gbc and hand over to private individuals the argument again she makes that national security does not have the requisite space to do its transmission it's not true again a false claim she makes national security as it stands today does do its transmissions through the national air the transmission grid of the the gtv now when you look at the dtt platform as a stance there are 42 transmission sites of those 42 transmission sites 32 of them are gbc legacy sites and so it cannot be said that gbc has not brought anything to the table because you're using their sites for the deployment of the infrastructure and that should give them even an equity stake in the whole discussion that we're having so for me when i listen to the minister and the argument that she's making i'm asking myself um are we going to sit back and allow the minister for communication in excess of a constitutionally mandated power and raise the gbc 10 pc channels yes and run them over to a private individual right but let me give you an example last year nrl here last year yeah the ministry tried to take away one channel from gbc and hand over to a private investor the nmc had to step in and reverse that today that channel is what we are using as the learning channel during the er endemic so you see the value of gbc stations so um thank you very much those are um a lot of issues that you have conversed within a very short time and as we understand we are run out of time but this issue is an issue that we will take our time and discuss thoroughly and god willing next week saturday we will return here and then also uh look at the matters arising as regards the airbus uh situation wants to talk let me add government should trade cautiously i think both in terms of content and assets i don't see government having much grounds on this matter let's trigger the national media commission into all these things the gbc boards have done it i think government should stay out of this okay uh thank you very much okay we have run out of time but as you can see we are continuing the celebration from last week and this is from mtn um auntie and me i've done bad day so but okay this is my senior so that is fine oh this is from mtn to you uh the content is rather very heavy that's why i just remind you on the end that uh me too i subscribe to you why my guests have been abdul malik will kubaku editing chief of the new crusading guide newspaper dr okoboy mp ledger cuckoo and deputy health minister uh this morning we're just talking about how we started in kumasi samuel nette george mp ningo from constituency and also a ranking member of the communications committee in parliament kofi abuchi joined us he's dean upsc law school and gottfried yabuar dame deputy attorney general and minister for justice also uh joined us thank you also very much i'm samsung ladies god willing next week we come your way with another edition of news file [Music] you

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Keywords: Newsfile on Joy News (18-7-20), Ghana Political Issues, Ghana Politics, Matters Arising in Ghana, NPP, CPP, PPP, National Budget, Chieftaincy, Ghanaian lawyers, Economy, Constitution, Election, campaign, YouTube, joy News, Newsfile, MyJoyOnline, My Joy Online, JoyOnline, MyJoyOnline TV, bright simons, evans mensah, samson lardy

Id: INAbDE9DHAY

Length: 150min 6sec (9006 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020