The government is developing fibre optic facilities in the country to meet growing demand for broadband communication services, the Deputy Minister of Communications, Ms Victoria Hammah, has said.

Workers of Intercity STC in Accra yesterday continued with a strike they started on Wednesday, to register their rage and despair at management’s inability to cater for their well-being, which underlines their inconsiderate attitude.

The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Nii Armah Ashietey, has cautioned workers who stage illegal strikes to stop the practice, else they would have to forfeit their salaries for the period that they do not work.

The Vice-President, Mr Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, has described the late Professor Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor as an internationalist and principled person who served his country and mankind.

The Member of Parliament for Bantama, Mr Henry Kwabena Kokofu, has called on religious institutions to be agents of social change in development in the society.

The Judicial Service has been allocated US$2.56 million to improve adjudication of land cases in the country under the second phase of the Ghana Land Administration Project (LAP II).

The Lord Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Cape coast, Right Reverend Daniel Sylvanus Adotei Allotey has cautioned Ghanaians, particularly politicians against running down some state institutions when their decisions do not favour them.

Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast,  the Central regional captial, Ghana’s oldest senior high school, has launched a week-long programme of activities planned to mark the school’s 137th Speech and Prize-giving Day this year.

African countries have been urged to expedite action towards the implementation of plans to migrate from the analogue to digital television platform by the deadline of 2014.

Vanguard Life has presented a cheque for GH¢267,162 to Ghana Home Loans, a mortgage finance institution.

Forty-three awards will be presented to deserving Ghanaian companies in the Non-Traditional Export sector at the 23rd National Awards for Export Achievement, slated for today.

A Senior Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Ernest Asare Abeney, has attributed the destruction of  Ghana’s forests to the absence of education on forestry laws and policies.

HFC Bank has launched its loyalty campaign and assured its customers of its commitment to reward its loyal customers.

Ghana is far from achieving the Millennium Development Goal 7 (MDG7) on environmental sanitation by the 2015 deadline.

Uniworld Skills College at Akyem Oda is supporting 20 academically disadvantaged Ghanaians to acquire employable skills free of charge.

A three-day workshop on “Effective communication and advocacy in maternal and newborn health” has ended in Accra.

The Local Government Service Secretariat has held a one-day workshop in Accra on inter-service collaboration to ensure proper decentralisation of all public institutions in the regions and districts of the country. Participants were drawn from various governmental agencies including the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate (EHSD) and Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA). In a presentation on decentralisation, local government and the Local Government Service, the Head of the Local Government Secretariat, Dr Callistus Mahama, said the constitution had placed an injunction on all the various state agencies to collaborate towards effective service delivery at the national, regional and district levels. He said in view of that,  the workshop was the first in a series of steps the secretariat  had lined up towards an eventual framework for collaboration at the local, regional and national levels. Outlining the legal provisions compelling agencies to collaborate, Dr Mahama,  said “the most direct injunction for inter-service/inter-sectoral collaboration and which puts the onus for the initiation of such collaboration and cooperation on the Local Government Service is contained in section 15 (6) (c) of the Local Government Service Act, 2003 (Act 656).” The Act states: “The Head of the [Local Government] Service shall ----- establish, with the approval of the [Local Government Service] Council, systems for effective inter-service and sectoral collaboration and cooperation between the [Local Government] Service, the Ghana Education Service, the  Ghana Health Service, the Forestry Service and other services to harmonise local government programmes and avoid duplication”. Assigning reasons for the need of an inter-service collaboration, Dr Callitus Mahama stated that the presence of both devolved (absolute powers) and de-concentrated (limited powers) departments and sectors, as well as non-decentralised services and sectors at the district level, made it inevitable to require co-ordinated delivery of municipal services, as well as for the co-ordinated preparation and implementation of district development plans. “The functions of some of the devolved departments and the de-concentrated departments and non-decentralised services overlap,” he added. He said decentralised development planning, as envisaged under the National Development Planning (System) Act, 1994 (Act 480) could be effective, only if the planning was done holistically and it involved all agencies connected with district-level development and district-level services delivery, whether those agencies were devolved or de-concentrated. “The sequencing of activities and operations in the course of implementation of development projects and delivery of municipal services provides another reason for inter-service collaboration and cooperation,” Dr Mahama added.   By Edmund Smith-Asante/Daily Graphic/Ghana Writer’s email: [email protected]

The National Drivers’ Academy (NDA) has begun a nationwide training for all Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMTL) bus drivers.