Big mining companies fail ‘Akoben’ rating

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

TREND analysis conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the performance of the mining sector in 2012 has shown that some mining companies once again failed in meeting environmental standards and legal requirements.

Major companies that received the red grading (meaning their overall performance was poor) are AngloGold Ashanti Limited’s Obuasi mine, Ghana Bauxite Company Limited – Awaso, Gold Fields Ghana Limited (Tarkwa Mine) and Golden Star (Bogoso/Prestea) Limited.

Vigilance needed to prevent cholera deaths — UNICEF

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

Mr David Duncan

UNICEF Ghana's Chief of Water Sanitation and Hygiene, (WASH) Mr David Duncan, has cautioned the country to continue to be alert, in order to put deaths through cholera, at bay.

Although he lauded Ghana for not recording any deaths as yet through cholera this year, he indicated that the worst case scenario of torrential rains, which normally contributed to widespread cholera, had not been experienced as yet.

Cholera receiving red carpet treatment in Ghana

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

Two boys fetching water from a contaminated source for household use at Dixcove in the Western Region

He looked at me and smiled. But what he was about to tell me was no laughing matter.

“I will never forget the day I got cholera. It was in 2012 during the elections, when after doing some monitoring I felt very hungry. I saw some ‘waakye’ (rice cooked with beans) at the roadside, bought some and ate my fill,” a colleague narrated to me.

“Thereafter I visited a very popular chop bar at Kwashieman, and ordered a bowl of fufu – In fact the fufu was very nice and I enjoyed every bit of it. Later in the night I had to visit the toilet several times where I passed watery stools, felt very sick and got dehydrated within few hours,” he continued.

‘Edwumagyan!’ Is it the name or the attitude? The story of a Ghanaian community

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

Members of the 'Edwumagyan'community in a meeting

In 1945, a man procured a piece of land to start some work. He thus employed the services of carpenters, masons, steel benders and all manner of craftsmen whose trade would come in handy for construction work.

But after a while when work had commenced, the employer returned one day and packed off all the materials he had purchased for the work without paying the artisans he had contracted to do the work, or explaining to them why he had decided to terminate work which had begun in earnest.

Only about half of Ghana’s population drinks tap water

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

Fetching water from Kasu river for use. Credit, Hagar Sey GWJN

Only about 47 out of every 100 Ghanaian households use pipe-borne water as their main source of drinking water, according to the country’s 2010 census results.

The remaining 43 per cent either drink from bore-holes or protected wells, sachet or bottled water, or depend on surface water such as rivers, streams and dams or rainwater.

No cholera deaths this year …but Ghana sitting on time bomb

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

Some of the participants in a group work exercise

A total of 9,542 cholera cases with 100 deaths were reported in Ghana in 2012, but no deaths have been recorded in 2013, despite some reported cases of the disease in the country.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic in a telephone interview last Friday, September 6, 2013, Mr Jonas Amanu, the Greater Accra Regional Environmental Health Officer, said although there had been no reported deaths from cholera  this year, the region had recorded 14 confirmed and reported cases since January.