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| Budget, murders occupy front pages in Ghana
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Accra, Ghana (PANA) -
The government's 2010 budget and financial
statement presented to Parliament on Wednesday by the
Minister of Finance and Economic Planing and a series of bloody
incidents occupied the front pages of newspapers in Ghana this week.
The two state-owned daily newspapers, the Ghanaian Times and Daily
Graphic, led their budget stories with the angle on focusing
on agriculture.
"Budget 2010 Levy on rice, poultry, fish imports," was the headline of
the Times, which said Government would next year levy duties on rice,
poultry and fish imports to cut down foreign substitutes and to
support local production.
It quoted Dr Donkor, who announced this in Accra when he presented the
2010 budget statement to parliament, as saying government's target
was to meet the domestic demand for fish and poultry by 2012.
The Times said the budget was built on four thematic areas - Private
sector development, provision of key infrastructure, agricultural
modernization
and information communication technology.
It also set a growth target of between 8 and 10 per cent based on the
implementation of projects and programmes earmarked under the four
thematic areas.
The Graphic's headline read: "2010 budget statement: Push for
agriculture: Rice, poultry key"
In another story, with the headline "Government to improve financial
ability of the poor" the paper said the government had allocated 103.8
million Ghana
cedis to relieve the poor.
The Graphic also had another story with the heading "2010 budget
statement: Poultry farmers upbeat about future of industry".
It said the Poultry Farmers Association had welcomed the government's
intervention for the revival of the domestic poultry industry, saying
its success or
failure would depend on how the provisions in the 2010 budget are
given practical implementation.
The two newspapers also highlighted a series of bloody incidents, with
the Graphic's lead story on Monday reading "Bloody weekend".
It said the grisly murder of a famous business woman, 30, near
Koforidua, the gruesome beheading of a six-year old boy near Sunyani
and the gunning down of
four armed robbers in Kumasi in a shoot-out with the police marked a
weekend of blood and horror for some residents of those parts of the
country.
The story said at Abesim, near Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region,
hundreds of residents besieged the crime scene, eager to catch a
glimpse of Ernest Kwame
Awuah, alias President, who was on display with the mutilated body of
his six-year old nephew, Charles Sey. Awuah allegedly pierced
Charles's right eye and ear and then slashed his throat.
The Graphic said at Okorase in the new Juaben municipality of the
Eastern Region, news of the Sunday morning murder of Rita Baah,
affectionately called Afia Ata,
allegedly by a fetish priest, spread like bush fire through the town.
The deceased, a resident of Effiduase in Koforidua who operates a
cosmetics shop and boutique at the Dasebre Roundabout in Koforidua,
was said to have been hit
several times on the forehead with a hammer by the fetish priest at
his shrine at Okorase about 12:30am.
In the Ashanti Region, the Regional Police Command took the fight
against armed robbery to another level at the weekend when they shot
dead four suspected armed robbers, all believed to be in their late
30s, during a gun battle at Konkromase,a suburb of Kumasi. The Times'
headline read: " Police gun down 4 robbers in Kumasi".
The death of the four brought to 26 the number of alleged armed
robbers killed by the police in Ashanti Region since January.
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| Accra - 21/11/2009 |
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