The Medical Director, who is also a Gynaecologist, said majority of adolescents resort to quack doctors, paying amounts ranging from GH¢100 and above only to report to the hospital with complicated cases.

Others also go to drug stores to buy certain complicated chemicals to administer themselves, which also leads to complications.

Doctor Baffoe, who was speaking on the topic “Reproductive Health-The Role of the Youth’’ at the 2012 Regional Forum organized by the Ghana Coalitions of NGOs in Health, disclosed that  the Gynaecologist Unit of the Regional Hospital records  5 to 10 cases of unsafe abortions every week usually associated with adolescent with serious complications.

“Save abortion services are available in health facilities, especially at the Regional Hospital and I wonder why people are not seeking for the service and will want to go for unsafe abortions and ends up worsening the situation”, Dr Baffoe indicated.

He said there were a lot of complications associated with unsafe abortions and indicated that apart from the short term effects, which include profuse bleeding, which usually calls for blood transfusion, its long term effect include infertility and chronic pelvic pains.

“There are many instances where we are forced to perform surgical operations on victims to remove the womb to enable them to survive, thereby rendering such people barren.  In such instances your are forced to tell such them you cannot give birth again.”

He said what was more worrying was that sometimes the parts of intestines of  victims, who are as young as 17 and 18 years are cut off to save them.

Dr Baffoe urged health institutions to educate the public, Schools and Civil Society Organizations on Adolescent Reproductive Health and also ensure that friendly health services were made available to Adolescents.

Participants stressed the need for parents to stop harassing their daughters, who get pregnant and rather encourage and investigate them to find out who was responsible and if the need be, assist them to go for safe abortion.

He attributed the problem of unsafe abortions by teenagers on the harassment they go through when they inform their parents of it, adding that, the practice must stop.

Mr Alagskomah Asakeya Noble, Regional Vice Chairman of the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health said the reason for organizing the Health Forum was to brainstorm on how to tackle adolescent and Reproductive Health issues, particularly teenage pregnancy and illegal abortion, which were alarming and required multi-sectorial approach in addressing them.

He disclosed that the Coalition within the first quarter of this year carried out a number of activities, including Maternal Health, HIV/AIDS, Drug and Substance Abuse in various districts in the region.

“The organization has made significant progress towards fulfilling its constitutional mandate of influencing health policy and building the capacity of NGOs for quality health service delivery”

The forum was also used to discuss the findings of the Millennium Development Goals Monitored Report conducted at Bongo by Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR).

Source: GNA

The outboard motors cost GH¢6,786 each and should be paid for within 18 months with two months grace period and a six-month guarantee.

Presenting the items the Eastern Regional Coordinator of LESDEP, Ms Fatahiya Zulka, urged the fishermen to put the outboard motors to effective use to increase fish production.

She said those who had applied for assistance in vocations such as hair dressing, tailoring and dress making and barbering that their equipment would soon be delivered to them.

Source: GNA

Appiah handed debut call-ups to six players and nine locally based players for the two games.

The debutants include Richard Kissi Boateng of Berekum Chelsea, Daniel Addo of Arsenal Kyiv in Ukraine, Jerry Akaminko of Turkish side Manisaspor, Portugal-based Christian Atsu, Ishmael Yartey of Swiss side Servette and Asante Kotoko forward Ben Acheampong.

Also recalled were Harrison Afful of reigning African champions, Esperance, Dominic Adiyiah, Rabiu Mohamed of Evian and England-based Albert Adomah, all left out of the squad for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations earlier this year.

According to the release by the Ghana Football Association (GFA), the team will begin non-residential camping in Accra on May 21 before leaving for Kumasi six-days later.

The Stars will face Lesotho on June 1 at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi before traveling to Ndola eight days later to face African champions, Zambia.

Full squad

Goalkeepers
Adam Kwarasey (Stromsgodset, Norway), Robert Dabuo (Wa All Stars), Daniel Adjei (Liberty Professionals), Ernest Sowah (Berekum Chelsea)

Defenders
Samuel Inkoom (Dnipro, Ukraine), Daniel Opare (Standard Liege, Belgium), Harrison Afful (Esperance, Tunisia), Richard Kissi Boateng (Berekum Cheslea), Masawudu Alhassan (Genoa, Italy), John Boye (Rennes, France), Lee Addy (Dalian Aerbin, China), Daniel Addo (Arsenal Kyiv, Ukraine) Rashid Sumaila (Dwarfs), Jerry Akaminko (Manisaspor, Turkey), Isaac Vorsah (Hoffenheim, Germany)

Midfielders
Anthony Annan (Vitesse Arnhem, Netherlands), Derek Boateng (Dnipro, Ukraine), Emmanuel Agyemang Badu (Udinese ,Italy), Rabiu Mohammed (Evian, France) Richard Mpong (Medema) Albert Adomah (Bristol City, England), Christian Atsu (Rio Ave, Portugal), Ishamel Yartey, (Servette, Switzerland), Sulley Muntari (AC Milan, Italy), Kwadwo Asamoah (Udinese, Italy).

Forwards
Jordan Ayew (Marseille, France), Dominic Adiyiah (Arsenal Kyiv, Ukraine), Ben Acheampong (Kotoko), Emmanuel Baffour (New Edubiase), Emmanuel Clottey (Berekum Chelsea)

Source: GNA

The two countries have also been cautioned to avoid bad precedence of some oil producing countries in Africa and rather “view their newly discovered oil and gas industry as an epoch that will propel them to a new socio-economic order,” Mr Jackson Byaruhanga, an Economist with the Ugandan Oil and Gas Local Content Studies Group stated.

Mr Byaruhanga, who was addressing journalists at a training programme on Oil and Gas reporting in Kampala on Wednesday, cautioned the two countries to put up measures that would help them “get it right or might never join the club of wealthy nations”.

He said there was the need for Ghana and Uganda to learn from the experiences of Nigeria’s oil sector to guide them to avoid the mistakes encountered by that country, saying, “Nigeria is a very good example for our countries”.

He indicated that the discovery of oil does not necessarily bring prosperity to a nation but it was the right measures and frameworks, including local content that when put in place, could help rise the status of a particular nation and the lives of its people.

According to the Economist, the two countries should not ignore their manufacturing and agricultural sectors, but develop them to avoid the “Dutch Disease Syndrome” which could also collapse other sectors of the economy.

He added that citizens must be given the requisite skills to enable them to fit into the oil sector to improve upon their lives.

The 10-day workshop is being organised by the Revenue Watch Institute in collaboration with Ghanaian-based Penplusbyte International Institute of ICT Journalism and the Thomson Reuters Foundation in UK.

About 16 journalists, from Ghana and Uganda are attending the workshop to help sharpen their skills in oil, gas and mining reporting.

Source: GNA

According to Airtel, the store known as Airtel Money Market which runs on Rancard’s Rendezvous Technology product is aimed at providing additional channels for Airtel Money customers and merchants.

The store, Airtel says “allows Ghanaians to use social interactions and contributions from trusted individuals as a guide in their decision to buy goods online.”

“The online platform will enable merchants have multiple outlets in addition to opening a virtual store and stocking it with merchandise available for sale.   For potential customers that visit the money market, they can window shop, as well as, compare prices from different merchants all from the comfort of their home or office,” it adds.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

A report by the Institute made available to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday, said “The overall 2011 score of 59.7 per cent shows that although some progress has been made in the year under review to enhance transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s oil and gas resources, more needs to be done in the coming years”.

It indicated that the country’s performance in the oil and gas sector had shown that considerable improvements were needed to improve transparency and accountability.

The P-TRAC Index is a project undertaken by IEA to promote transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s precious oil and gas resources.

The IEA explained that, the 2011 P-TRAC Index measured transparency based on the provision of publicly available information in four key areas – Contract Transparency, Revenue Transparency, Expenditure Transparency and management of the Heritage and Stabilisation Funds – for 2011.

A score is awarded based on the fulfillment of specified criteria for each component, which is then averaged to give an overall result.

The highest scoring component was Contract Transparency, which measures the public disclosure of information regarding the award of contracts, with a score of 66.7 per cent.

The publication of Environmental Impact Assessments by the Jubilee Partners was awarded a score of 100 per cent.

Other components such as the establishment of the Petroleum Commission, as the authority awarding contracts, the constitutional mandate of Parliament to ratify and scrutinise contracts, and the openness and competiveness of the licensing process, also performed relatively strongly.

The publication of information on licensing by government, public disclosure of oil and gas agreements, and process for appealing a license grant application were however, highlighted as areas in need of improvement.

The P-TRAC report awarded Revenue Transparency a score of 64.3 per cent and showed a varied result in the publication of reports.

Expenditure Transparency scored an average of 63.9 per cent for the frequency and quality of reports regarding expenditures from the Government’s share of revenues.

The review of projects receiving funding from the oil and gas revenue and the extent of their potential developmental impacts in areas of priority was reasonably positive and scored 88.6 per cent.

The lowest scoring component of the Index was the management of the Heritage and Stabilisation Funds, with an average transparency score of 44 per cent.

While it is pleasing to see that the Constitutional requirement for the accounts of the funds to be audited are being fulfilled, the 2011 audited reports has not yet been published by the Auditor General at the time the Index was compiled.

The score was negatively impacted by the lack of information on the performance of the Heritage and Stabilisation Funds, which is supposed to be published semi-annually by the Bank of Ghana.

Source: GNA

Speaking to journalists after a three-day visit to Ghana, Sir Peace said the strong economic fundamentals were signs of good prospects for businesses and the bank would continue to exploit opportunities in areas such as oil and gas, infrastructure and solutions for large transactions in the Ghanaian market.

“We’ve been here for the past 116 years and our commitment is for the long term,” Mr Peace said, adding that the bank was ready to grow its business in Ghana.

Sir Peace was in Ghana for a three-day working visit during which he met government officials, regulators, staff and senior management of the Bank.

He also took part in a community activity related to “Seeing is believing,” the Bank’s flagship global community initiative which tackles avoidable blindness.

Sir Peace said Standard Chartered Bank’s confidence is also demonstrated by plans of the bank’s local unit to double the size of its branch networks to ensure quality service to clients in both the consumer and commercial banking domain.

The bank, he said, would keep to its pledge to be with the country for good.

“Here for good is the essence of who we are. It’s about sticking by our clients and customers through good times and bad, and always trying to do the right thing,” he said.

Sir Peace said Ghana’s economic and political achievements were being recognized by the rest of the world hence the increasing attraction as an investment destination.

“Standard Chartered Bank would continue to play its role as one of the major contributors Ghana’s economic success story. The bank is not only concerned about profit but the overall growth of the Ghanaian economy,” he said.

Sir Peace asked Ghanaian officials to leverage the current stability and economic growth to transform the economy by investing in infrastructure and agriculture.

He said with the right vision and the rich human resource base the country could potentially grow to become a hub for economic activities just as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Source: GNA

He said though it took about eight years for the Biosafety Act to be passed, it should not take so much time for its implementation so that the country could  benefit from this technology.

The Biosafety Act, 831, 2011 will enable Ghana to regulate for responsible development, handling and use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) derived from biotechnology. This Act does not apply to GMOs that are pharmaceuticals for human use.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Pretoria, Mr Asamoah-Okyere,  a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the National Biosfety Committee, noted that the implementation of the law would help to establish a transparent and predictable process to review and make decisions on permit requests from applicants along the product development pipeline.

The 28-page Act has nine Arrangements of Sections, which include Scope, Objectives and Establishment, Administration, Handling of Requests for Approvals, Reviews and Approvals, Technical Advisory Committee, Regulatory Agencies, Inspections, Finance and Miscellaneous.

It also has five schedules which include -Conduct of Business and Affairs of the Board, Information Required in Applications for Contained or Confined Use, Information Required in Applications for Release, Importation and Placing on the Market, Risk Assessment and Regulatory Agencies.

Mr Asamoah-Okyere is taking part in a 10-day Biosafety Internship and Study Tour for African Regulators in Petoria, South Africa, organised for participants from countries with emerging biosafety systems.

Participants were primarily regulators and researchers drawn from West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa at various stages of the biosafety regulatory process such as contained trials, confined field trials and commercialization of genetically modified crops.

The tour, organized by the NEPAD Agency, Africa Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE) in collaboration with AfricaBio, a not for profit organization serving as the voice for African biotechnology, will give participants the opportunity to share knowledge and experiences among themselves as they learn from the experiences of the South African Biosafety System.

This will also help develop their capacity and expertise in biotechnology and biosafety regulations, its implementation and enforcement to create an enabling environment for biotechnology to thrive in their respective countries.

The internship and study tour include workshop sessions to provide an overview of divergent and cross cutting issues related to the agricultural biotechnology applications, biosafety regulation in South Africa, economic development potential for Africa’s agriculture and food security as well as field and laboratory tours.

Mr Asamoah-Okyere noted that implementation will work perfectly as current political-will translates to support in the provision of quality human and financial resource to strengthen the biosafety system detailed by the Biosafety Act, 2011.

He noted that Ghana had a lot to learn from South Africa in spite of some differences in their biosafety regulatory infrastructure.

He called for more capacity building in human resource in biotechnology from the universities and urged students to develop the interest in studying biotechnology as it holds a promising future both locally and internationally.

He said biotechnology is one of the tools that could make a meaningful contribution to the food security challenges facing the continent. It would therefore be prudent to embrace modern biotechnology to help meet emerging food security challenges and help develop our economy through job creation.

According to him, modern biotechnology uses biological systems, living organisms to make or modify products to improve our livelihood. He said there was no need for people to express fear of the technology and the products it generates as these are highly regulated to ensure public health and safety is protected.

Traditional biotechnology has been in use for centuries and includes fermentation processes for production of bread, kenkey, and alcoholic beverages such as beer. Modern biotechnology is based on developments in molecular biology that occurred in the second half of the 20th century that has sped up traditional process and made them more precise in a world where time and accuracy is premium.

Currently, modern biotechnology has been used to improve conventional crops to resist insect infestation and herbicide tolerance as well as improved nutritional quality and prolonged shelf life of produce. Consequently, this improves crop yields (and farmer income), reduce pesticide use and provide nutritious food.

In West Africa, Burkina Faso is currently benefiting from biotechnology through the cultivation of Bt Cotton. Egypt and South Africa are also enjoying the benefits of modern biotechnology.

Source: GNA

This agency will be known as the ECOWAS Investment Guarantee/Reinsurance Agency, according the regional bloc.

ECOWAS says it is therefore hosting a two-day validation workshop on a feasibility study aimed at establishing the agency.

The workshop will be held in Abuja, Nigeria on May 22 and 23, 2012. It will bring together key stakeholders, including ministries of trade and investment from ECOWAS Member States and executives from the insurance and reinsurance sector.

The objective here is an open forum to discuss the main findings, conclusions and implications of the feasibility study, the body said in a statement.

By Ekow Quandzie

The match to be played at the Accra Sports Stadium is the 2nd leg final round qualifier of the Fifa Under 20 Women’s World Cup.

Kick off time is 15:00GMT, the FA said.

The Black Princesses beat the Tunisians 3-1 in the first leg and will book a second successive World Cup appearance if they avoid defeat on Saturday.

The World Cup will be staged in Japan.

By Ekow Quandzie