Sunday, 29 September 2013

Abeiku Santana Marries Again

Mr. Gilbert Aggrey host of Okay FM's late afternoon show Ekwanso Dwodwoo , better known as Abeiku Santana officially tied the knot  to cemented his love affair with a banker, Genevieve Ewurafua Forson Saturday, September 28, 2013 at the Emmanuel Methodist Chapel at East Airport, Accra.
 

The event was attended by dozens of media practitioners, close relations as well as some celebrities in Gh. Chief among the politicians were Kofi Wayo of the United Renaissance Party, Mr. Boakye Agyarko of the NPP and Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West-Wuogon,Mr Aquinas Quansah as well as former Chief Director at the Local Government Ministry, Nana Oduro Kwarteng.
This is the second time the ace broadcaster/presenter had to choose a life partner after his marriage to Margaret fell on the rocks. Abeiku Santana and Genevieve are said to have been pals for over 13 years.
 

The two went through a traditional marriage ceremony last February, and decided to top it with a wedding yesterday.
“Gene is a gift from God and we being together again is by the divine grace of God.I have known Gene in Kumasi since 2001 before coming to Accra where I met and married Maggie, my ex. As God’s ways are not our ways and luck being on my side, Gene was still single so I took that bold step, proposed and she accepted,” Santana told Showbiz in an interview recently.

He described her lost-and-found love as an ideal African woman who is “not artificial, someone who projects African beauty and portrays African values, a lady who knows how to appreciate her man in every way“, he said. 

 IMAGE SOURCE:www.myjoyonline.com

Friday, 27 September 2013

5 AMAZING PROPERTIES OF SUNSHINE

 Sunlight is well-known to provide us vitamin D, but did you know that it kills pain, keeps us alert at night, burns fat and more...

Five noteworthy properties of sunlight exposure:

1) Sunlight Has Pain-Killing (Analgesic) Properties:
A 2005 study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine titled, "The effect of sunlight on postoperative analgesic medication use: a prospective study of patients undergoing spinal surgery," analyzed patients staying on the bright side of the hospital unit who were exposed to 46% higher-intensity sunlight on average. The patients exposed to an increased intensity of sunlight experienced less perceived stress, marginally less, took 22% less analgesic medication 
  
2) Sunlight Burns Fat:
A 2011 study published in The Journal of Investigative Dermatology revealed a remarkable fact of metabolism: The exposure of human skin to UV light results in increased subcutaneous fat metabolism. While subcutaneous fat, unlike visceral fat, is not considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, it is known that a deficiency of one of sunlight's best known beneficial byproducts, vitamin D, is associated with greater visceral fat.Also, there is a solid body of research showing that vitamin D deficiency is linked to obesity, with 9 such studies on our obesity research page.

Exposure to UVB radiation, which is most abundant two hours on either side of solar noon and responsible for producing vitamin D, may be an essential strategy in burning fat, the natural way.per hour, and had 21% less pain medication costs.


 3) Sunlight via Solar Cycles May Directly Regulate Human Lifespan: 
Published in 2010 in the journal Medical Hypotheses and titled, "The effect of solar cycles on human lifespan in the 50 United states: variation in light affects the human genome," researchers review the possibility that solar cycles directly affect the human genome.
 4) Daytime Sunlight Exposure Improves Evening Alertness: 
A 2012 study published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience titled, "Effects of prior light exposure on early evening performance, subjective sleepiness, and hormonal secretion," found that subjects felt significantly more alert at the beginning of the evening after being exposed to 6 hours of mainly daylight exposure, whereas they became sleepier at the end of the evening after artificial light exposure.

5) Sunlight May Convert To Metabolic Energy: 
If a novel hypothesis published in 2008 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is correct, a longstanding assumption that animals are incapable of utilizing light energy directly is now called into question.  In other words, our skin may contain the equivalent of melanin "solar-panels," and it may be possible to "ingest" energy, as plants do, directly from the Sun.

Vertebrate animals may also convert light directly into metabolic energy through the help of melanin.

[Source :  http://www.greenmedinfo.com]


Aggudey NOT BETTER than a village plantain thief.

George Aggudey, a former Presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), who was to serve time in prison for defaulting on the payment of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions of his workers, was on Thursday granted bail.

This was after Aggudey, in the company of his lawyer, stormed an Accra Fast Track High Court to seek bail concerning his three-month jail-term on medical grounds.("Drama style"-in my opinion)

The presiding judge, Justice Habib Mustapaha Logoh, granted bail in the sum GH¢ 2 million with two sureties to Aggudey, who appeared in court with a walking stick.

Earlier Kwamina Baiden, counsel for Aggudey, asked the court to grant bail to the boss of Gocrest Security Company who he said had been "genuinely" unwell for some time now as a result of which he was receiving medical attention.He said his client was a responsible person and had persons ready to stand surety for him.

However, Rexford Wiredu, the principal state attorney in the case, asked the court to refuse Aggudey bail because illness should not be used as grounds for seeking bail.                                                                     Mr. Rexford said the accused person wanted to be granted bail on health grounds to avoid starting his jail term and prayed the court to deny him bail.

The trial judge subsequently granted the former presidential candidate bail on health grounds.                        Aggudey has since deposited documents on landed property worth his bail amount to the court.The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Gocrest was a few weeks ago sentenced to three months’ imprisonment by an Accra District Court. 

This many Ghanaian workers suspect a drama to prevent  "the man" from serving his jail term
Source:www.myjoyonline.com
 

Thursday, 26 September 2013

IMANI President Asks Pensions Regulator: Where Is Our Pension Money?



Dear National Pensions Regulatory Authority,
I have had to cut short my self-imposed break from public advocacy to write this letter. Over the last couple of months I have become overwhelmed and increasingly worried about the number of calls I personally receive from disgruntled workers and retirees about the poor state of their pensions.
I was particularly struck with the following paragraph in one of the letters a middle-aged worker sent to me 'The state-owned pension organization 'SSNIT' was a Ponzi (419) scheme. We hoped for liberation from outright theft of worker contributions, haphazard and shady investments and sleazy financial reporting only to be in the jaws of a begotten baby crocodile (NPRA) preparing to devour our pension money nyafu nyafu'. "nyafu nyafu" is a local term for petty corruption.
My think tank, IMANI had many public and private fruitful engagements with the NPRA and we agreed on a timetable for remitting tier-two contributions to legally registered trustees. I have however sought to make this communication public to further the discourse and help Ghanaian workers with information on where we stand with part of their pension money.
It may well be that you are working under very trying conditions, but it seems we need finality to the issue of second-tier contributions three and half years after collection.
BACKGROUND
In September 2009, the Board of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) was set up to oversee the implementation of the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766). The Act seeks to create a unified pension system under a three tiered pension structure, with SSNIT as the manager of the First Tier, and Approved Trustees (Corporate & Individual Trustees) as operators of the mandatory Tier 2 and Voluntary Tier 3 schemes.
In January 2010, the Temporary Pension Fund Account (TPFA) was set up to provisionally administer Tier 2 contributions pending the licensing of Trustees and the registering of Pension Schemes. Employers, from January 2010, remitted 5% (Tier 2 contributions) of their employees' salaries to the TPFA. This continued for most employers till October 2012.

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

The Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) is expected to announce the 150 percent upward tariff adjustment on Wednesday.

The PURC last week served notice of its plans to adjust electricity and water tariffs after providers made a strong case for an increment.

However, uncertainties surrounding this increment would be settled today after months of speculation.

Meanwhile, a Civil Society Group, Truth and Accountability Forum trying to seek a court injunction on the move has hinted of a massive demonstration to protest the increment.

Spokesperson for the group, Saka Salia in an interview with an Accra based radio Citi 97.30fm said, their decision to go on demonstration amongst other lawful things is because “the consumer has been taken for disdain in the face of extreme poverty, unemployment, in the face of monumental corruption that has engulfed this nation.”

According to him, “it does not make sense for any well thinking Ghanaian or organization to sit down and then increase at a bulk 150% on the consumer.”

He further stated that the quantum of percentage increase would not augur well for the citizenry looking at the high rate of unemployment.
SOUCE:citifmonline.com

Sunday, 22 September 2013

Wondering Why You Don’t Get Asked Out On Dates?

I recently thought through the term “Date Zero Chicks” after I had realized that,there’s a subset of women who do not stand the chance of ever being asked-out on a first date.Let me clearly distinguish between being asked-out and first date.–First date is not the first time a guy asks you out for coffee or drinks, or the first time a guys agree to hang out and watch a movie or meet out at a lounge. A date is when someone asks you directly to do something with them,“just them”and it’s a time that is set aside and made special. The reason I clarify is that many women will say they can get dates, but then their dates really go nowhere afterwards. That’s because those weren’t dates in the first place.They were exploratory moments or simply just a man thinking "what little effort can I put in to convince her that I’m putting in a whole lot of effort and get…. ‘em a**?"
How does a guy decide on the women that he wants to approach and the ones he’ll pass on?What’s keeping some women from first dates?
I find that really simple but hard to explain in the official language of the female gender(Venusivian)– no matter how men break “it” down,you’ll never understand what men mean by she has to have “it.”What I can tell you is that there are several reasons why women never make it on the first date.While many women will disagree or claim that they aren’t fair,I have to remind all of us that our goals determine our actions.We can’t expect our goals to adjust and adapt to our actions.It’s simple you must always meet the requirements for your goals, not the other way around.If your goal is to go on a date then you have to play the game, the way the game is played.                                                                                                                         With that, here’s a list of reasons why you’ll never make it on the first date:

1.You don’t know when to keep quiet :   
 A piece of advice to all, “sometimes making your point is the most irrelevant thing to do.” There’s a lot of confusion with learning when to hold the tongue and feeling like women’s thoughts shouldn’t be suppressed.Often times most women talk guys out o approaching them by simply not knowing when to stop.                                                                                                                                                                                 
2.Your relationship goals seem to require a man, not the man:
After interacting with most women,it seems they want to be in relationships,they want to be married, they want a husband and family, but it doesn’t really ever matter who that person is as long as they have the same goal. It reminds me of people who get degrees from no-name schools just to say they have the degree, instead of those people who identify the Top 25 or so schools and make it a point to go there because the school matters to them.
3.You think that everyone should appreciates your flaws and character traits,without complain:
“I want someone who is going to appreciate me for me” society has evolved and you’ve got to accept who i am. It’s okay to want someone who is going to accept that am not perfect.But note that if there’s something that has to be change,you have to make that happen.
eg.binge drinking

4.You want a clean slate but won’t offer the same to a man:
Most women are noted to have a tall list of reasons why they won’t date a guy. They will most likely not date a guy who dated one of their girlfriends, or if the guy has few skeletons in his closet from the past. However, everywomanone deserves a second, third, fourth, fifth chance.This is where the saying that “he who ask for equity must come with clean hands” apply.

5.You lack consistency:
 There are tons of women do not realize that when they are so inconsistent it cripples any man’s ability to take them seriously. They want a serious relationship but gives the “hint” that they’ve got a night-rider waiting in the depths of late night texts. They say they want to settle down and get serious about getting married and starting a family but their social media account is full of pictures of them @ various hot spots in the city. And it’s not just your social life that needs consistency but all facets. It could be your dedication to the gym and dieting ,career etc – Men (and women) appreciate consistency in the people they wanna date.
Ref:www.singleblackmale.org

Friday, 20 September 2013

Black Stars Vs. Egypt Set For Tuesday Oct. 15

The Ghana Football Association(GFA) has changed the date for next month’s World Cup playoff against Egypt in Kumasi.
The first-leg of the clash was earlier scheduled to be played on Sunday, 13th October, 2013. However, the GFA has decided to change the match to Tuesday 15th October, 2013.
The decision is meant to give Black Stars coach Kwesi Appiah more training time with the team before the match in Kumasi.
It is also in line with FIFA’s decision of playing the first-leg of the playoffs between 11 and 15 October.
The Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi remains the venue for the match.
Kick off will be at 16:00GMT.
The second leg is planned for between 15 and 19 November of this year.
Two-leg ties will be played between both nations with the aggregate winner going to the finals in Brazil next year.
 SOURCE:GFA