THE ISSUE OF WHO CONTROLS PARLIAMENT
Dear Editor,
Kindly permit me some space to express my opinion on the issue of what constitute majority in Ghana parliament.
The issue of which of the two political parties in the run-off will control the 2009 parliament in terms of numbers have generated a lot of counter explanations. It has now become the issue for campaigning, both in the airwaves and various campaign grounds. Whiles the NDC is claiming of having majority of seats after the December 10 parliamentary results, the NPP has openly disagreed. This may be due to what political analyst describe as a “slim majority” obtained by the NDC in the just ended elections. Those counter explanations and intentional disagreements should not be considered strange due to the various opportunities the party considered majority stands to gain from the electorates in this crucial run-off. Of course, the complimentary support from the electorates especially floating voters should not escape ones political eyes and imaginations.
In an attempt to confuse and possibly woo support from floating voters, a number of authorities and personalities have created and imagined figures a party can obtain to be considered majority in parliament. One these baseless arguments that caught my attention were the one advanced by the NPP’s presidential candidate at Bolgatanga.
According to the 19th December edition of the Ghanaian Times, page 11, Nana Akuffo Addo said, the 113 seats obtained by the NDC does not constitute majority. He further said the party needed 116 seats which according to him constituted majority in a parliament of 230 seats. The basis of his argument, Nana reluctantly failed to provide. He rather undoubtedly gave credit to his party in terms of majority and describing it as a “working majority”. He beefed up his working majority by concluding that, the four independent MP’s elect, who were members of the NPP, but went on independent tickets due internal grievances in the party during the primaries would come back to give them the numbers. He added that, the NPP is capable of winning the Asutifi South and the Akwatia seats. To the 3 PNC and CPP MP’s elect, Nana said, his party’s good working relationship with their parties will help lure them to their sided. All these he said are possible happenings and will therefore give the party a working majority, working majority of course!
Though the 1992 constitution is silent on the issue of majority, the Standing Orders of Parliament has some information on the issue. According to it, a party / parties with the highest number of seats in parliament constitutes majority and therefore choose(s) the speaker. Parties in this case refers to two or more political parties coming together to contest an election which did not happen in the 2008 elections. This means that, there is no clear number of seats a party / parties can obtain to constitute a majority in parliament so; the source of Nana’s 116 seats needed to constitute a majority?
For Nana Akuffo Addo, who according to his supporters is celebrating his thirty-one years in active politics to have advanced such a baseless argument, it sends down shivers on us floating voters. His law profession which though, was questioned not quite long by the former president and his wife also fall sort of this source less figure of 116 seats to constitute majority.
Nana’s claim of a possible come back of the four independent MP’s elect is also wavering. These four gentlemen as we all know opted to contest their party’s candidates independently due to what many people considered as unfair treatment meted out to them during the primaries. Nana, of course was aware of this and could have resolved the matter If indeed he wanted to unite the party for more votes/seats. He should also be guided by the incident that happened in the NDC’s camp in 2000. A number of independent MPs including Hon. Abubakar Sadicq, MP for Saliga, Mr. Joe Akutibila, former MP for Bomkoriku Yooyo and Mr. Rasheed Bawa former MP for Kadjebi Akan, deserted their mother party in parliament to join the NPP that was having the largest number of seats at the time. The same thing can equally happen to the NPP in the 2009 parliament taking into consideration the grievances that caused these men to go independent. It is therefore a forgone conclusion that, the four independent MPs elect would join the NPP’s side to give them the working majority Nana claimed they will get.
The NPP’s flag bearer should not also forget that, a good working relationship with Dr. Papa Kwesi Ndoum of CPP does not necessarily mean that, Mrs. Samir Nkrumah would join the NPP in transacting business in the house. He should of course , also be reminded of the fact that, the three PNC MPs who on the 16th of December surrounded their three votes to the NPP will on the 7th of January, 2009 be seen as former MPs. The two PNC MP’s elect will then consider a number of issues before joining a party in parliament. Though good relationship will also be considered, the NDC will not be excluded. These MPs elect will as well consider joining a party with a clear lead in terms of numbers obtained in other to benefit from decision making process and the consequent developmental benefits to their constituencies.
Even though, it will also be wrong on the side of the NDC to say that their clear lead in the parliamentary seats will lure the seven MPs elect to their side in parliament, the NPP’s argument is totally unreliable. In fact, theirs should have been the least expected. Nana’s legal credentials should have also alerted him that, the Mps elect can only support the NPP in decision making but cannot denounce total support for the party which means they cross carpeted.
The NPP, I should think is alarmed of the changing trends in the minds of the electorates. The good people of Ghana will like to compliment the NDC’s lead in the parliamentary seats by voting for the Prof. to ensure smooth and professional management of the economy rather than putting into test Ghana ’s toddle-like democracy. But this does not mean that, NPP’s big whips and the whole Nana should go about peddling unfounded arguments that are outside the issue base campaign that, he Nana advocated for at the beginning.
In other not to be confused and subsequently thump printing at the wrong place because of these intentional disagreements, floating voters should watch out. The party/parties with the highest number of seats in parliament after an election is/are the majority, simple and clear. This means that the NDC’s 114 seats set them steps ahead of their closest contender, the NPP, as they thrill with 107 seats.
Nana should therefore provide the facts and let the good people of Ghana make a genuine choice to reflect their wishes and wants come December, 28.
Akalaare Azidizian
Box 112, Tongo-Bolga
Friday, October 30, 2009
FRUSTRATIONS OF APPLICANTS,GES act now!
Of late, senior high school leavers nationwide have come to patronize the country’s nursing training college (NTC) so much that, the institutions seem to have taken advantage of this mad rush and its related difficulties to exploit applicants
Almost every senior high school leaver in one way or the other aspires to enter NTC in other to realize what is fast becoming a “day dream”. To some, it is only a stepping stone for them to spring up into their real careers in life. Others however, think they have been called to heal the sick. This in itself is not surprising due to the various incentives that await them whiles they are students and the subsequent job assurances which comes alongside motivational packages that are lacking in most sectors of Ghana’s job market.
The institutions concerned- the NTCs and other tertiary institutions having realized the craving and crazy demands for their so called hot cake have kept in place wild measures to the disadvantage of these poor applicants.
One has to attend and pass an interview, the fairness and transparency of which I should think still remain a doubt and of course, remain uncertain and undecided after universities and teacher training colleges have released their admissions.
Due to the keen competition in getting admissions into the country's tertiary institutions for reasons beyond the length of this article, most students have resorted to the idea of multiple admission form purchasing.
As a result, applicants who buy university and or other training college admission are normally faced with choosing to forgone an admission at hand to await and earnestly hope for favorable results or the other way round.But this in itself is not easy handling since most are often victims and would rather be careful this time round.
It is at this time that, other tertiary institutions in the country particularly the late admission re leasers, pray to take advantage of. Due to the non-refundable nature of the admission fees in the countries institutions which to me is questionable, a lot of applicants end up paying monies to institutions they will not attend. This is normally the case were the student's preferred institutions grants him\her admission to pursue a course of ones choice.
Some, due to meager finance which is fast becoming a normality, will have to forgo the admissions received earlier while they wait for their second fate to be decided by the other institutions. Most of these students end up wailing with hands on heads with the usual “had I known” which may demand a concluding part like “leads to the Island of no return’’
The others may be the lucky ones will then have to gather courage and vigor to forgo the earlier admissions received.With hopes and faith chocked to their neck, they will embark on a massive week after week fasting and praying for the second release, which is mostly from these professional institutions (Nursing / Teacher Training Colleges, Ghana Institute of Journalism– GIJ ) to be favorable.
These practices frustrate and traumatize students a lot and end up heaping large sums of money into the accounts of these institutions. The end destination and final usage of those monies still remains a mystery. Or, is it accounted for by government? What if the principal, chancellor or rector of an institution after unanimous decision has been reached from management, decides to say that, they did not record such an incident? I mean fees paid without students attending the said institution? If no, are those monies used judiciously to the benefit of these schools? May be we should channel these questions to our able Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, or better still the Public Accounts committee (PAC) can add it to their agenda. For we are actually keen in knowing
These acts of robbing students, mostly unemployed to pay government resource institutions is unfair. It has existed for long and must be solved immediately. Not the usual pen and paper solution which end up in the already congested offices of these seemingly insensitive offices.
A good measure will be a coincident release of admission letters. This can be made possible if institutions with longer admission procedures - applicants sitting for interim exam and (or) attending an interview, are made to start earlier than others. This may call for directives from GES to help break the existing autonomy of these institutions to admit at their own convenience. The admission fees can also be made refundable to enable students who may get admissions into a school of their choice and preference take back the money paid into other institutions.
I am of the opinion that, Ghana Education Service is conscious of these inconveniences in the system. They, including other concerned stakeholders should therefore act fast to correct what I may be tempted to describe as “a well coordinated and intentional machinery” to rob students of their meager incomes. And on top frustrate and disappoint the tender minds of applicants.
A practical measure towards the immediate and practical correction of this ever-existed problem will help buttress The Mills-led Administration's intention of giving much attention to education.It will become a justifier to the "I care for you" mania that was released on January 7 that will be remembered and rehearsed by all especially the innocent victims.
Well, I’m only among the many that are crying loud for the correction of this “master minder” for the benefit of all and beloved Ghana as well. But until this is done, victims of the said incident will continue to rain curses on these institutions and the possible beneficiaries of the booties.
The end result, I cannot tell.
Almost every senior high school leaver in one way or the other aspires to enter NTC in other to realize what is fast becoming a “day dream”. To some, it is only a stepping stone for them to spring up into their real careers in life. Others however, think they have been called to heal the sick. This in itself is not surprising due to the various incentives that await them whiles they are students and the subsequent job assurances which comes alongside motivational packages that are lacking in most sectors of Ghana’s job market.
The institutions concerned- the NTCs and other tertiary institutions having realized the craving and crazy demands for their so called hot cake have kept in place wild measures to the disadvantage of these poor applicants.
One has to attend and pass an interview, the fairness and transparency of which I should think still remain a doubt and of course, remain uncertain and undecided after universities and teacher training colleges have released their admissions.
Due to the keen competition in getting admissions into the country's tertiary institutions for reasons beyond the length of this article, most students have resorted to the idea of multiple admission form purchasing.
As a result, applicants who buy university and or other training college admission are normally faced with choosing to forgone an admission at hand to await and earnestly hope for favorable results or the other way round.But this in itself is not easy handling since most are often victims and would rather be careful this time round.
It is at this time that, other tertiary institutions in the country particularly the late admission re leasers, pray to take advantage of. Due to the non-refundable nature of the admission fees in the countries institutions which to me is questionable, a lot of applicants end up paying monies to institutions they will not attend. This is normally the case were the student's preferred institutions grants him\her admission to pursue a course of ones choice.
Some, due to meager finance which is fast becoming a normality, will have to forgo the admissions received earlier while they wait for their second fate to be decided by the other institutions. Most of these students end up wailing with hands on heads with the usual “had I known” which may demand a concluding part like “leads to the Island of no return’’
The others may be the lucky ones will then have to gather courage and vigor to forgo the earlier admissions received.With hopes and faith chocked to their neck, they will embark on a massive week after week fasting and praying for the second release, which is mostly from these professional institutions (Nursing / Teacher Training Colleges, Ghana Institute of Journalism– GIJ ) to be favorable.
These practices frustrate and traumatize students a lot and end up heaping large sums of money into the accounts of these institutions. The end destination and final usage of those monies still remains a mystery. Or, is it accounted for by government? What if the principal, chancellor or rector of an institution after unanimous decision has been reached from management, decides to say that, they did not record such an incident? I mean fees paid without students attending the said institution? If no, are those monies used judiciously to the benefit of these schools? May be we should channel these questions to our able Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, or better still the Public Accounts committee (PAC) can add it to their agenda. For we are actually keen in knowing
These acts of robbing students, mostly unemployed to pay government resource institutions is unfair. It has existed for long and must be solved immediately. Not the usual pen and paper solution which end up in the already congested offices of these seemingly insensitive offices.
A good measure will be a coincident release of admission letters. This can be made possible if institutions with longer admission procedures - applicants sitting for interim exam and (or) attending an interview, are made to start earlier than others. This may call for directives from GES to help break the existing autonomy of these institutions to admit at their own convenience. The admission fees can also be made refundable to enable students who may get admissions into a school of their choice and preference take back the money paid into other institutions.
I am of the opinion that, Ghana Education Service is conscious of these inconveniences in the system. They, including other concerned stakeholders should therefore act fast to correct what I may be tempted to describe as “a well coordinated and intentional machinery” to rob students of their meager incomes. And on top frustrate and disappoint the tender minds of applicants.
A practical measure towards the immediate and practical correction of this ever-existed problem will help buttress The Mills-led Administration's intention of giving much attention to education.It will become a justifier to the "I care for you" mania that was released on January 7 that will be remembered and rehearsed by all especially the innocent victims.
Well, I’m only among the many that are crying loud for the correction of this “master minder” for the benefit of all and beloved Ghana as well. But until this is done, victims of the said incident will continue to rain curses on these institutions and the possible beneficiaries of the booties.
The end result, I cannot tell.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY AND ITS DEFINITIONS
1) The term Knowledge Society refers to any society where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. It may also refer to the use that a certain society gives to information. A Knowledge society "creates, shares and uses knowledge for the prosperity and well-being of its people".(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_society)
2) Yves Courier in his reference to Castells definition points out that information society “ has to do with a society in which the conditions for generating knowledge and processing information have been substantially changed by a technological revolution focused on information processing, knowledge generation, and information technologies.”
Further on, he states: “What characterizes the current technological revolution is not the central personage of knowledge and information, but rather the application of this knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information/communication processing devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of innovation.” And he vouches: “The diffusion of technology infinitively amplifies its power when its users appropriate it and redefine it. The new information technologies are not merely tools to be applied, but rather processes to be developed.(...) For the first time in history, the human mind is a direct productive force, not only a decisive element of the production system.”
3) From the mid-1990s on, ‘the knowledge society’ (Stehr 1994) begins to compete with ‘the information society’ as a pervasive term in public discourse. While the term information society focuses on the raw materials so to speak (‘information’), the term knowledge society serves to emphasise the various menus (‘knowledge’) that may result from people’s handling of the raw materials. The change in concepts thus reflects a transformation in societal definitions of the fundamental levers of social development and of the competences necessary to bring about such developments.
In a knowledge society, the levers of development is the creation, circulation and appropriation of knowledge, i.e. non-material processes that in principle may take place anywhere and at any time. The creation of knowledge is no longer the prerogative of formal settings such as schools and work places; and hence the introduction of the term knowledge society is parallelled by a shifting emphasis from education (whose entry point is a teacher in an institutional setting) to learning (whose entry point is the learner in any given spatio-temporal context).
(A definition by Kirsten Drotner, drotner@litcul.
sdu.dk /http://www.ask.com/bar?q=definitions+of+%22knowledge+society)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
MASS COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT
draft
10/6/09
by MAXWELL
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Edit
MASS COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT
MASS COMMUNICATION DEFINITIONS OF INFORMATION SOCIETY 1. A society where communication and information technologies influence the everyday lives of most of its members. Helped by the advance of the Internet and a 'wired' culture, technology is used for a wide range of personal, social, educational and business activities, and to transmit receive and exchange digital data rapidly between places despite great distances. In an information society, information is as powerful a resource as the manufacturing and agricultural industries were in previous eras. Also known as the knowledge economy, digital era or information superhighway. - http://www.redgoldfish.co.uk/viewglossary.asp?gid=106 2. In a broad sense, the term Information Systems (IS) refers to the interaction between people, processes, and technology. This interaction can occur within or across organizational boundaries. An information system is not only the technology an organization uses, but also the way in which the organization’s people interact with the technology and the way in which the technology works with the organization’s business processes. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_systems 3. information society A society in which low cost information technology , computers, and telecommunications are widely used to facilitate communication nationally and internationally, and to promote access to libraries, data archives, and other stores of information held by private organizations or in the public domain. It is argued that this greater facility of communication and increased access to information creates a qualitatively different society with attendant new problems, such as information overload, and the need for new forms of regulation to control information flows between persons, companies, and countries. Whereas market economies have traditionally been geared towards solving ... - http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O88-informationsociety.html 4. The European Union High-Level Expert Group report of 1997, defines information society as: The society that is currently being put in place, where low-cost information and data storage and transmission technologies are in general use. The generalisation of information and data use is being accompanied by organisational, commercial, social and legal innovations that will profoundly change life both in the world of work and in society generally (Nassimberi 1998: 154). 5. Dennis McQuail (1997: 87) states that in the information society, "information work predominates, and information is the most valuable resource". He further notes that the characteristic of information society is an exponential increase in the production and flow of information of all kinds. One of the most explicit definitions of information society is the one offered by the Finland's Council of State. Information society is seen as a:
draft
10/6/09
by MAXWELL
Delete
Edit
MASS COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT
MASS COMMUNICATION DEFINITIONS OF INFORMATION SOCIETY 1. A society where communication and information technologies influence the everyday lives of most of its members. Helped by the advance of the Internet and a 'wired' culture, technology is used for a wide range of personal, social, educational and business activities, and to transmit receive and exchange digital data rapidly between places despite great distances. In an information society, information is as powerful a resource as the manufacturing and agricultural industries were in previous eras. Also known as the knowledge economy, digital era or information superhighway. - http://www.redgoldfish.co.uk/viewglossary.asp?gid=106 2. In a broad sense, the term Information Systems (IS) refers to the interaction between people, processes, and technology. This interaction can occur within or across organizational boundaries. An information system is not only the technology an organization uses, but also the way in which the organization’s people interact with the technology and the way in which the technology works with the organization’s business processes. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_systems 3. information society A society in which low cost information technology , computers, and telecommunications are widely used to facilitate communication nationally and internationally, and to promote access to libraries, data archives, and other stores of information held by private organizations or in the public domain. It is argued that this greater facility of communication and increased access to information creates a qualitatively different society with attendant new problems, such as information overload, and the need for new forms of regulation to control information flows between persons, companies, and countries. Whereas market economies have traditionally been geared towards solving ... - http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O88-informationsociety.html 4. The European Union High-Level Expert Group report of 1997, defines information society as: The society that is currently being put in place, where low-cost information and data storage and transmission technologies are in general use. The generalisation of information and data use is being accompanied by organisational, commercial, social and legal innovations that will profoundly change life both in the world of work and in society generally (Nassimberi 1998: 154). 5. Dennis McQuail (1997: 87) states that in the information society, "information work predominates, and information is the most valuable resource". He further notes that the characteristic of information society is an exponential increase in the production and flow of information of all kinds. One of the most explicit definitions of information society is the one offered by the Finland's Council of State. Information society is seen as a:
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