Eight people were reported dead but the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) confirmed only two, as at the time of writing this post.

National Coodinator of NADMO Kofi Portuphy, told journalists one of the two dead persons died in the floods whilst the other died from electrocution.

Major roads in the capital including Graphic Road – which leads to the Central Business District – have been rendered impassable. The Kwame Nkrumah Circle, a very important centre of convergence for city dwellers, motorists and visitors from other parts of the country, has been submerged by flood waters.

people stood on top of vehicles at the kwame nkrumah circle. photo credit: citifm

Vehicular movements in the capital have also been brought to a standstill, preventing workers from getting to their offices. The courageous ones have taken advantage of the situation to make some money, as people had to be carried on the back through the waters for a fee ranging between GHc 1 and GHC2 (0.70 – 1.30 US dollars), depending on the distance covered and depth of the water.

vehicles were submerged by flood waters

School authorities in the metropolis have been asked to inform parents to keep their wards at home as city authorities and  officials of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) work around the clock to provide some relief to affected areas.

Education Minister, Betty Mould-Idrissu has directed the Ghana Education Service to close down schools in the  Accra Region to safeguard the lives of the children as the authorities are not in a position to ascertain whether the school infrastructures are safe to accommodate school children after the heavy downpour.

A colleague journalist and alumnus of the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ) of Inwent (now GIZ), Kent Mensah, who was affected by the flooding, said flood waters have gone beyond the window level in most homes in his Kwashiebu neighbourhood and even reached the wall clock level in his house.

” My car was submerged in flood waters, my room, everything is in the water. I couldnt salvage anything, not even a pin, but I thank God for my life and that of my family members”, he told this reporter.

As city authorities stepped up efforts to contain the situation, people are advised to stay clear from river channels and valleys particularly residents of Odawna and the Korle Lagoon areas as the spillage is still ongoing.

There is deep distrust as accusation and counter accusations are being hurled around.

The President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) Dr. Emmanuel Adom Winful, perhaps frustrated by it all, yesterday refused to speak to The Accra Mail when contacted for comment: “I am not making any contacts and any comments to any journalist”, he ended the interview even before it had begun.

The striking doctors are yet to call off their two-week old strike despite pleas from the President, key religious personalities and civil organizations to get them to return to work.

The doctors are protesting delays in migrating them onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), accusing  the Fair Wages and Salary Commission (FWSC), implementers of the SSS, and the government for showing little commitment in addressing their grievances.

Minister for Communications and acting Minister of Health, Haruna Iddrisu dropped hints last Tuesday that the doctors might return to work in 48 hours, citing the outcome of a meeting between the Ghana Medical Association, the government and the FWSC.

The Minister did not disclose details of the agreement reached with the doctors but said the FWSC is making headway in negotiating a deal with the aggrieved doctors.

He was optimistic that there’s an end in sight for the strike. He was speaking to a local radio station in Accra.

However, as at the time of going to press last night, doctors had not announced an end to the strike action or their return to work.

The Vice President of the GMA, Dr. Kwabena Opoku-Adusei said the outcome of the meeting between the GMA and FWSC cannot be described as successful, as the Chief Executive of the FWSC, Mr. George Smith-Graham, left the meeting in anger.

“The acting health minister was there, the deputy health minister, Rojo Mettle Nunoo was also there when this man refused to append his signature to the minutes of the meeting we held and left in anger.

Call the Minister back and ask him if this was not true, and ask him if that was the headway being made”, the GMA Vice-President told The Accra Mail.

Dr.  Opoku-Adusei condemned the bonding of medical doctors being proposed by the acting health minister.

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu over the weekend had intimated that the government is seriously looking into a bonding system where public sector doctors, as providers of essential services, will sign an undertaking never to use strike action to air their grievances.

Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, who described the proposal as “thrash” said it would not work. He called on the government to call the CEO of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to order and put into place reasonable measures that will get doctors back to work.

The GMA Vice President said he is not in the least enthused with a lawsuit filed against the striking doctors by a local NGO, saying the GMA “is ready to meet them in court”.

He said “It’s unfortunate when people think we are providers of essential services only when it comes to our work.

They forget we are the providers of essential services when it comes to our pay and I believe that is not fair.

I am surprised this organization would choose that path at this crucial moment when we are pressing home our demand for better conditions of service. We thought an organization would go to court to compel the government to do the right thing instead”.

With these developments The Accra Mail can report that there is no end in sight now for the ongoing strike action but at the same time can confirm that a good number of doctors, mostly the senior ones, are at work.

A senior physician and member of the GMA, Dr Ken Aryeetey, who spoke to the Accra Mail, disclosed that many senior doctors are at work.

He said he is not part of the core negotiating team and could therefore not provide details “but I can tell you that most of us the senior ones are working, because of ethical reasons and for the sake of our patients”, which however did not mean he was not in solidarity with his colleagues agitating for better conditions of service.

The public is equally divided and confused. Though many agree with the doctors legitimate demands, they also believe that the doctors’ action is bringing untold hardship to innocent bystanders – that is patients in need of medical care.

This is not the first time that doctors have been on strike for better conditions, but this seems to have ominous tones of intransigence on the part of the main actors, the GMA, the FWSC and the government.

With these sharp contradictions, the controversy surrounding the US$48,000 Michelle Obama watch rages on perhaps until the “ghost” that handed over the present is uncovered.

The Accra Daily Mail (ADM) newspaper, which this writer works for, is daily inundated with sad stories from abroad of how men and women who believe they are getting the love of their lives end up being bilked of huge sums of money.

The following questions are posed to people living abroad who are love sick. Have you fallen in love online? Do you have any online girlfriend? Have you exchanged photos with them? Do they look like real?Did they send genuine looking documents? Did they ask you for some money to come over to you? Did you give them money? If your answer to any two of these questions is “Yes” then you might be dealing with an online scammer.
ADM decided to follow through a complaint sent in by a love sick man in the UK who said he had been fooled into sending cash to a lady he fell in love with on the Internet, Following the scent he provided, ADM investigations led to a ring of young men and women in Ghana, who create false profiles on dating sites to defraud unsuspecting single men looking for love from overseas.
These young people apart from using semi-nude photographs of different ladies to lure unsuspecting men, especially widowers and lonely men, also fake birth certificates, passports and visas to convince their victims that they are genuine.
In the case of the complainant from the UK, who sent more than £1, 200, apart from booking a BA flight for his newfound “wife” to join him, she never surfaced to consummate the “marriage”!The relationship began after the exchange of a few emails. He received various documents including what looked like family photos from his “lover” to make him believe that she was genuine. Little did he know that his online girlfriend was a male!
ADM investigations have since led to the arrest of two young men and their female collaborators whose photographs were used in faking two Ghanaian passports and a UK visa to defraud the love sick Britisher.
The four suspects are Kwabena Owusu Gyamfi, 31, shopkeeper, Baba Iddrisu, 17, student, Amanda Dishneill, 21, student, and Rahmatu Adamu, 27, a volunteer working with BasicNeeds Ghana, an international NGO. They have all confessed to the crime and pleaded for leniency.
When the ADM reporter, with the help of the police, got into the suspects’ fraudulent mailboxes, it came to light that they had made contacts with hundreds of unsuspecting men, some of whom had been sending cash and birthday gifts.They are assisting the police in investigations, especially with regards to the fake birth certificates, passports and visas.
Modus Operandi
Online dating scammers always create false personal profiles and make contact with their victims via an online dating agency or a specialized chat room.They often say that they are seeking romance or a soul mate but are really out to steal not only your heart but your cash too.
Scammers can sign up to online dating agencies or chat rooms just like anyone else. Many online dating sites allow anyone to join for free, and they usually do not screen their members. They take advantage of the anonymity of the internet to create the profile of your perfect match and make any number of promises to attract you and cause you to open up to them.
How to identify them
They make unnecessary demands. The scammer will surely ask for your money, though this will not happen immediately – however, before long the scammer will ask for financial help for any number of reasons. Almost always, they will ask you to send money using an untraceable source such as a telegraphic money transfer
The following is a slightly edited communication the ADM reporter had with a near victim in Germany:
“Hello Iddrisu ! Thank You for the warning you gave me as “Linda” and sorry I was so rough at first. I am a lonely man from Germany and so searched for a soul mate at the website “www.afrointroductions.com “, I like the African women so this seemed the right site to me. But soon pretty girls contacted me and during the first chat after just a few minutes asked me to send them either money or, as in the case of “Linda”, to send a ticket and visa to enter Germany. With that fake Linda I instantly knew that somebody wants just my money, what I didn’t know was that “she” was in reality a man. Thanks again for telling me!”