Ashanti Today

Large acreage of farms at Abuontem  in the Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti region has been completely destroyed by wildfire leading to the destruction of food crops either already harvested or at maturity stages.  Part of the affected lands is an 50 acre maize farm and a farmhouse belonging to a 39-year old Dispensary Technician at the Ejura District Hospital, Sule Adams. The farmhouse had been stocked with about 300 bags of the maize of which everything in the house including the structure itself was completely destroyed leading to a loss of more than 45 thousand Ghana Cedis.  Speaking to  Ashanti Today, Mr. Adams suspected that the incident was an act of arson considering the fact that, it occurred just a day after the harvest of the maize and that the day of the incident, Tuesday,  is forbidden for anyone to undertake a farming activity in the area.  According to him, he was informed about the wildfire at about 5.30 pm on the 22 nd of...

Motorists and travelers plying the Scarp located between Jamasi and Ninting in the Ashanti region popularly known as the Mampong Scarp, are faced with danger, as portions of the scarp have been experiencing the occasional falling of rocks or topsoil of the hill onto the base of the highland sometimes directly on to the single-lane road.  A close monitoring and observation of the situation by Ashanti Today  has revealed that the phenomenon is very common during the rainy season with minor incidences of the falling of the rocks during the dry season.  Drivers have appealed to the Ghana Highways Authority to act swiftly to avert any catastrophe. A commercial truck driver, Abdulai Sadick said "Sometimes the rocks fall to the ground. Even when I was coming, I observe that some of the rocks had fallen along the road. It scares us. Sometimes you just come to face the situation. It can cause and accident. The authorities should attend to the situation immediately."...

Ashanti region experienced bumper crops harvest during the last farming season with the excess food exported to Togo, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast.  The Regional Directorate of Agriculture has identified the Offinso and Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipalities as well as the Asante Akyem North district as the areas where the bumper harvest has been very pronounced and therefore become the main sources of export of the excess foodstuffs.  The Ashanti Regional Director of Agric, Reverend John Manu made this known to the Ashanti Today in Kumasi on the sidelines of the handing over of 559 new motorbikes to Agric Extension Agents and their Supervisors working in the region.  The motorbikes, which have been comprehensively insured, were procured by the Government of Ghana with funding from the Canadian Government as part of the Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana, MAG and Planting for Food and Jobs initiative. With the number of motorbikes handed over, all Agric Ext...

The Chiefs and people of the Adansi traditional area in the Ashanti region are calling for a diversification of the local economy to include other potential economic activities in the area.  This would avert the severity of the socio-economic hardship the people experienced during the shutdown of the Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi Mine and also guarantee sustainable sources of livelihood in the area after the 22 year duration of the rejuvenated mine.  These suggestions were made when our Correspondent spoke the chiefs and people during the launch of the Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi Mine Re-development Project. The Obuasi Mine For about 122 years, gold mining has been the main source of livelihood for the people of Adansi traditional area in the Ashanti region, even though the people undertake other income generating activities such as food and cash crop farming.  In 2004, the then Ashanti Goldfields was divested to Anglogold Ashanti,   with the Obuasi mine o...

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Right Reverend Professor J.O.Y Mante has admonished Ghanaians to desist from further destroying the environment in the name of development.  He said nothing untoward should be done to distort the purpose for which the ecosystem was created.   Rt. Rev. Prof. Mante gave the admonishing in a sermon at the induction service of the newly elected Asante Presbytery Chairperson of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev. Benson Osafo Kantanka, in Kumasi.  He said ecological  balance is important because it leads to the continuous existence of particularly humankind. Therefore any ecological imbalance through human-caused disturbance can have far reaching negative consequence on God’s creatures.   Rt. Rev. Prof. Mante further urged Christians to invest some time in the study of the Bible, prayer and fasting, and be hard worki...

The National Disaster Management Organization, NADMO, has declared the newly built Kejetia Terminal Complex as very safe for business. What is now left is the issuance of a Safety Certificate anytime from now to empower the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, KMA, to open the facility for business.  This was the verdict of the Director General of the NADMO, Mr. Eric Agyemang Prempeh, after he led a Technical Team of the Organization to evaluate the safety readiness of the facility in Kumasi for operations. The Project Construction of the Kejetia Terminal Complex began in November 2015 as the first phase of a comprehensive Kumasi Central Market Redevelopment and was scheduled for completion in two years. The deadline has however delayed for more than a year due an initial resistance by occupants of the old terminal as well as litigation over a portion of the land.  The intervention of the Manhyia Palace however helped to clear the hurdle for the construction to get to its...

President Akufo-Addo today, Thu. Jan. 17,  joined hundreds of mourners, well-wishers and sympathizers at the traditional burial rites and Requiem at the Saint Cyprian’s Anglican Cathedral in Kumasi to repose the soul of the late Mrs. Yvonne Opoku Sarkodie. The late Mrs. Yvonne Opoku Sarkodie is the wife of Justice Frederick Opoku Sarkodie, one of the three High Court Judges who were abducted and murdered in 1982.  Born Nee Nana Yaa Akyaa Prempeh into the Royal Asafu-Adjei lineage of Kumasi Baman in 1936, the late Mrs. Yvonne Opoku Sarkodie was the wife of Justice Frederick Opoku Sarkodie, one of the three High Court Judges who were abducted and murdered on June 30, 1982 at Bondase in the Greater Accra region.  She was the first of five children of the first Asante Reverend Minister of the Anglican Church, the Rev. John Prempeh also of the Kumasi Royal Family and Mrs. Mary Afrakomah Prempeh also of the Baman Royal Family in Kumasi.  Mrs. Yvonne Opoku...

The body of a man has been found at the outskirts of Ninting near Asante Mampong. The Body, believed to be that of a taxi driver who was declared missing in the Mampong Municipality about two weeks ago, was in a state of decomposition.  The lifeless body was found early Tuesday Morning, Jan. 15, 2019,  by some Agric Extension Officers who were attending to the farm of a cocoa farmer.  They were attracted to the scene by the stench from the decomposition body.  Eye witnesses told the Ashanti Today that the driver, whose name was given only as Kwadwo also known as Level by his peers, was last seen with his taxi cab on the 25 th of last December and had since not been traced by his relatives. Level, said to be in his mid 30s, was a resident of Mampong New Damaang.  Eyewitnesses complained to Ashanti Today that even though the police at Mampong, which is about 10 minutes drive away, they were yet to attend to the scene as at 12:30 pm.

Statistics gathered by Ashanti Today indicate that the increased public education towards geared at reducing road accidents in the Ashanti region is not achieving the desired results to keep the roads safe.   The records show that all the parametres in road safety in the region saw increase including the number of persons killed through accidents which shot up from the 2017 figure of 335 to 395 last year translating into 18 per cent increase.  The National Road Safety Commission is attributing the situation to many factors including indiscipline among drivers and riders.  The National Road Safety Commission, NRSC, the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service, MTTD and their partners continue to campaign towards safety on the roads.  These stakeholders have jointly organized various programmes and campaign activities such as public for drivers, to drum home the key responsibilities each interest group has to play to ensure mot...

A group calling itself Progressive Zongo Youth of Asawase in the Asokore Mampong Municipality of Ashanti, has expressed gratitude to President Akuffo-Addo for showing that his commitment towards the development of the Zongo communities goes beyond political rhetoric or gimmick and pledged its continued support to the President in this respect.  A t a news conference at Aboabo in the Asokore Mampong Municipality, the leader of the group, Abdul Jalil Mohammed Basouka commended Government to dealing justly with the people of Asawase Zongo in respect of the package of one million, 750 thousand Ghana Cedis in compensation for dependents of all the seven men shot and killed by police personnel near Manso Nkwanta in the then Amansie West district of the Ashanti region last year.  In addition, the Government has pledged to start prosecuting the police personnel found to have acted outside the law in the matter to bring justice to the victims. T he Progre...

Successes in government’s priority programmes of stopping illegal mining commonly known as ‘Galamsey’ and the Referenda for the creation of six additional political regions in Ghana have been credited mainly to an effective collaboration and involvement of the media and civil society groups, CSOs.  The media-CSOs’ closer partnership in the two national programmes led to greater public awareness creation, appreciation of the key issues, ownership as well as active participation during the implementation periods.  These were the observations made by both participants and facilitators at a day’s capacity building workshop for selected journalists from the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions constituting Zone Four of the zonal media training towards actualization of certain state programmes.  The event on the theme: “Enhanced Media-CSOs Partnership for Inclusive Local Governance” is part of a joint project by the Ghana Journalists Association, GJA and STAR-Ghana. Th...

There was a near clash between some customers of MENZGOLD, a struggling gold dealership company, and the Police in Kumasi this morning following the insistence of the aggrieved investors to go ahead with their street protest, despite a caution by the Ashanti Regional Police Command.  By 6 am today, Tue Jan. 8 the customers had mobilized and converged around the Amakom offices of MENZGOLD, clad in red arm bands and wielding placards with various inscriptions communicating their concerns and frustrations, and also protesting the government’s reaction to their plight so far.  The protestors first burnt lorry tyres on a portion of the main Asafo-Tek Junction road blocking the road in the process, to frustrate traffic movement. It took a swift intervention by the Police and the Ghana National Fire Service to clear the blocked road to allow for free flow of vehicular traffic movement on that stretch of the road.  After being confined at the vicinity of the MENZGOL...

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo has announced a total package of one million, 750 thousand Ghana Cedis in compensation for dependents of all the seven men shot and killed by police personnel near Manso Nkwanta in the then Amansie West district of the Ashanti region last year.  The amount translates into 250 thousand Ghana Cedis for each of the bereaved families. President Akufo-Addo, announced this in Kumasi today, Tue Jan. 8 at the maiden Zongo for Peace and Development Conference. In July last year, a team of police personnel from Kumasi went to the then Amansie West   now Amansie South district on an operation during which they shot and killed seven young men.  At a new Press briefing later in the day, the Police narrated their side of circumstances that led to the killing of the men who were residents of Asawase in the Asokore Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti region and insisted that the victims, who all died on the spot, were armed robbers who eng...

The Kumasi Abattoir has undergone a transformation following the construction of a modern meat market that now guarantees hygienic meat for members of the public.  This followed an amicable resolution of a misunderstanding between the butchers and management of the facility after years of mistrust and legal battle over efforts to modernize the Abattoir to meet the increasing competition from the private meat industry.  Aside from the ‘Butchers’ Palace’ which is the focal project, the meat market complex also involves the provision of open and lockable stores for petty traders who sell vegetables and other food products at cost that meet their individual financial positions to make the centre a one-stop shop facility for patrons of the Abattoir.  It has also, places of convenience, changing rooms, a free car park, spaces for easy vehicular, tricycles and human movement in and around the complex.  The Chief Butcher at the Abattoir, Alhaji Musah Bawa Tanko...

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu has rallied Ghanaians to pool together to grow the national economy and bring progress to the country.  He said everybody should have a part to play in the task of building a noble Ghanaian. Otumfuo Osei Tutu made the call at a special service held by the Asante Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi.  The special service is part of the church’s ‘Mission to the Palace’ programme, which aims at strengthening relationship between the Presbyterian Church and the chieftaincy institution. Otumfuo Osei Tutu underlined the need for everyone to uphold the values of transparency, accountability and truthfulness.  These virtues should be combined with hard work and tolerance. The Asantehene added that the expectation is that Ghanaians will live up to their civic responsibilities as citizens in the New Year. He encouraged the Presbyterian Church of Ghana to provide the right leadership to purge t...

It is often said, that the church and the state are partners in development. The Church has, over the years made substantial contribution to the socio-economic wellbeing of the circular society for the advancement of mankind through the provision of key social amenities like healthcare, water and formal education while at the same time, helping to mould the character of the people.  As shepherds and promoters of the social wellbeing of their members, leaders and Ministers of the churches are thus expected to speak out on issues of national concern to shape national policies in the interest of the people.  It is against this background that Ministers of churches in the Ashanti region expressed their views about certain happenings in the country during their respective congregations’ last Church services for the year just gone by.  Speaking to Ashanti Today  in an interview during the 31st Watch Night Church Service, the Superintendent Minister of the Ato...