3rd September, 2014

The Daily Graphic: "Women deserve more" the Daily Graphic discusses the fight for a society with gender equality and equity resulting in the adoption of the Women's Manifesto. The paper congratulates ABANTU for Development on its efforts towards ensuring fairness for women in all fields especially as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. It says despite its work in the adoption of the women's manifesto, and successes chalked up, a lot more need to be done through further education on the existence of the manifesto and what is seeks to achieve. The Graphic hopes that by the end of the next decade of its existence women groups including ABANTU would have fully achieved what the Manifesto set out to do when it was adopted in 2004.


The Ghanaian Times says Ghana's democracy has been touted as successful globally and its electoral systems single out for praises in the midst of unstable and failing democracies. Locally however, the image of the electoral commission has been battered and its activities called to question following the election petition last year. According to the paper, despite the call by the Supreme Court for the EC to undertake electoral reforms, nothing seems to have been done one year after the verdict. Whiles the times agrees that the EC must undertake the reforms to govern the conduct of the electoral process, the paper is however unable to point out what the EC has been doing to address the challenge. The Times therefore thinks it is advisable for the EC to act now since one year is long enough to begin the reforms.

The Today writes on indiscipline on the roads. It says the practice of pedestrians crossing the road by using concrete median barriers has rendered many of the footbridges useless. It says in cases where there are wire medium barriers all of them have been destroyed by recalcitrant residents. The paper condemns the practice where residents and pedestrians ignore footbridges and resort to scaling over wire barriers. According to the paper, it is important to engage stakeholders including anytime roads are being constructed. It says some of the footbridges have been built at places where they are not supposed to be.

The General Telegraph access to justice under the law is a basic human right under the 1992 constitution. According to the paper, numerous impediments like long delays in hearing, frequent adjournments, high cost of pursing legal redress among others make it difficult for the vulnerable to access justice in the courts. The paper says the Legal Aid Scheme was established to help the vulnerable in society to obtain justice, but unfortunately the scheme is faced with multiple challenges which limit its ability to enforce its mandate. The Telegraph urges government to lend optimum support to agencies working to improve access to justice for the poor and marginalised in society. 

GBC