Category: HEADLINES

About twenty students of Fumbisi Senior High /Agric School in the Upper East Region collapsed between Sunday and Monday after allegedly seeing ghosts lurking on campus, a situation which has caused the management to send all students home and shut the place down temporarily until further notice.

Three of the students collapsed on Sunday night and 17 more on Monday.

They were hospitalised at Fumbisi Clinic and the Sandema Government Hospital.

Sixteen of those taken to the Sandema Government Hospital have been discharged.

As a result of the ghost scare, some students went on the rampage over the mysterious mass fainting of their fellow students – a situation which compelled the school authorities to shut down the place.

The District Police Commander for Builsa South, Superintendent Samuel Ntoso, told Class News’ regional correspondent Derick Abakisi which was monitored by dikoder.com that “a strange object”, according to reports, “which looked like a human being, appeared where the children were studying” in the night around 11 pm and, so, they “became frightened and started running for dear life in various directions”.

“So, one of the third-year General Arts students, a lady, whose name was given as Salomey Acheampong, happened to jump from the second floor and landed on the ground, so, she got injured and was rushed to the Fumbisi Clinic. But the information we have now is that she has been transferred to Sandema.

“Then also around 1 am this morning [Monday], that’s at dawn, some of the students, according to the information we have, went to the housemistress’ bungalow and threw stones to damage some of her properties. From there they continued to the headmaster’s bungalow where they assaulted the night security man. So, when day broke, the troubles were still going on. [The school] prepared their [students] breakfast for them but they said they will not eat. So, the headmaster, in consultation with the DCE and the Regional Director of Education, took a decision that in order not to sit down for anything bad to happen, they should close the school down until further notice.

“According to the information that we have, some of the girls have some attacks which looks spiritual so they have been rushed to the Sandema Government Hospital. The school has been closed down and all the students have left the campus”, he narrated.

Story by: Pearl Abaidoo-Abbam

Renowned investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has argued that the BBC Africa Eye exposé on “s$x for grades” cannot be accepted or ought to be rejected because it did not focus on how undeserved grades were offered to s$xually harassed female students.

Commenting on the raging issue on social media, the award-winning, reigning West Africa Journalist of the year, observed that the BBC should have focused on the subject of their investigation, which it failed to do.

“Investigative journalism is like academic research. If you have randomly or purposively (as in Prof. Gyampo’s case) sampled a university lecturer who allegedly offers undeserved grades to his s$xually harassed students, then you can only use one approach to test your hypothesis: let your engagement focus on the subject of the investigation. Go to the lecturer and tell him you are one of his over one thousand students and you have failed his subject or you are not sure of passing his subject. If he asks for sex in order to give you the grade, you have your story,” he explained.

Mr Azure, therefore, criticized the approach adopted by the investigative team:

“You can easily get a fake student ID card and index number that show you a student taking his course. When you are going to bust a lecturer offering grades in return for s$x, you don’t go to him or her as someone seeking mentorship or to seek national service placement without mentioning the subject of grades,” he added.

Using the example of Professor Gyampo of the University of Ghana to further buttress his point, Mr Awuni averred that even though he is not justifying the actions of the Professor, he finds that there was no element of coercion or victimization which is implied in “s$x for grades” situations.

“In the case of Prof. Gyampo, as shown in the video, the lecturer made advances at a student who wanted to be mentored. In the process, he told her to be free to accept or reject the proposal. She did not give in. He requested a hug after buying her shoes. She declined. And they parted ways,” he contended.

Meanwhile, the chairperson of the Anti-S$xual Harassment Committee of the University of Ghana has stated that she finds no case of s$x for grades in the documentary.

“Per the analysis of the video, there’s no direct correlation between lecturer’s conduct and the allegations made by the video. The evidence does not point to s$x for grade. When we talk of sex for grade, we didn’t see much involvement of the lecturers of the University of Ghana,” she revealed to Starr FM monitored by dikoder.com.

Story by: Pearl Abaidoo-Abbam

The government has announced it is going to change power installation at the Jubilee House to solar power in the coming days as part of a bigger national agenda to promote the use of solar energy in the country.

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo who disclosed this at the opening of the 5th Renewable Energy Fair and National Energy symposium said the move is to increase the use of renewable energy and reduce the financial burden government puts on utility distributors.

“We are committed to the promotion of renewable energy in the country. We are in the process of connecting the Jubilee House on solar at the seat of government following a successful connection of the Energy Ministry to solar which has reduced the power intake from the national grid and lessening the economic and financial burden on their activities.”

He further disclosed that government is seeking funds from donors to connect all government facilities to solar power.

“We are also negotiating with our development partners to provide funding support to connect key government facilities including the Ministries, municipalities, departments and agencies to solar power”

This, he believes, will also reduce government’s burden of having to pay utility bills for those establishments

Meanwhile, the government has assured that the renegotiation of the Take or Pay contracts will reduce the cost of power in the country.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta in the Mid-year budget review announces a renegotiation exercise for all contracts within the Energy sector as a way of reducing the financial burden regarding energy generation in the contract.

According to the government, there is the need to renegotiate the contracts within the energy sector which were all issued on take or pay basis.

This means that while the country is paying for all the over 4,000 megawatts of power generated, only 40% which is equivalent to 2,300 MegaWatts is actually used, while the cost of the remaining 60 percent of excess capacity is a loss incurred by the state.

Story by Pearl Abaidoo-Abbam