Day: June 9, 2023

Amnesty International on Friday called on Zimbabwe’s president not to sign into law the so-called "Patriotic Act" that lawmakers approved this week.

The government says the proposed law, which would authorize penalties against people found guilty of damaging Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and national interests, is justified and must be enacted. Critics say the law will curb freedom of expression during the August elections.

Amnesty International urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa not to sign the measure, known officially as the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Amendment Bill 2022.

The bill, if made law, would authorize jail terms of up 20 years against those found guilty of “willfully injuring the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe.”

It would also allow the death penalty for a person found to have advocated for international sanctions that harm the country or its people.

Amnesty said the proposed law would effectively give authorities greater power to unduly restrict human rights and silence those perceived as being critical of the government, such as political activists, human rights defenders, journalists, civil society leaders, opposition parties and whistle-blowers.

Lucia Masuka, Amnesty's executive director in Zimbabwe, said her organization was deeply concerned by this week’s passing of the bill by the Senate.

“The weaponization of the law is a desperate and patent move to curtail the rights to freedom of expression and to public participation in elections due in August this year," she said. "The bill’s deliberately vague and overly broad provisions on damaging Zimbabwe’s interest and sovereignty, including by calling for economic sanctions, flies in the face of Zimbabwe’s international human rights obligations. All laws must be defined precisely, allowing people to know exactly which acts will make them criminally liable.”

But Ziyambi Ziyambi, Zimbabwe’s justice minister, said the proposed law would target only citizens who plan on harming the nation with the help of foreigners.

"The provision says this: If you go and meet a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government, and [the intention of the meeting] is to ensure that particular country imposes a trade embargo on Zimbabwe or sanctions, and you fully participate and you urge them to do that, knowing fully well that your action will injure the sovereignty of the country, you are guilty of an offense," Ziyambi said. "Are you saying it is good?”

He added that even if the measure was enacted, Zimbabweans would still be allowed to say anything and even criticize Mnangagwa.

"The law has nothing to do with Mnangagwa," Ziyambi said. "You can insult him as long as you do not infringe on existing laws; you won’t be arrested. We are saying we can disagree, but not to the extent of advocating for the generality of the population to suffer.”

Musa Kika, a constitutional lawyer who heads the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, said enactment of the legislation would be unfortunate.

“The government has committed itself to certain governance reforms in light of arrears and debt clearance process," Kika said. "Under governance there are issues to do with constitutionalism and civic space, et cetera. This kind of law takes back or takes away whatever commitments it has made in that process. This is an unconstitutional law - it infringes on all sorts of civil and political rights that the constitution gives.”

He added that the bill could be struck off Zimbabwe’s statutes if challenged in court.

But Rutendo Matinyarare, chairman of the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, disagreed.

“Amnesty International is not a multilateral human rights institution," Matinyarare said. "So they do not qualify to speak on human rights issues. That is the prerogative of the U.N. Human Rights Council. Secondly, Amnesty International is paid, so it is not an independent institution; it is an institution paid to advance American and Western interests over Third World interests and African interests.

"On the issue of the Patriotic Bill, they have not given any evidence how the Patriotic Bill is going to close down dissent, because there is nowhere in the Patriotic Bill that it says Zimbabweans are not allowed to criticize their government.”

Mnangagwa has not said when or whether he will sign the bill into law.

Source: Voice of America

Little Tajudeen (his surname) is a lovely and lively boy doing well just like any normal child. He is a source of immense joy to his parents.

His birth, eight years ago, was a moment of both joy and sadness. He, and his twin brother, who passed away shortly after being born, were delivered as preterm babies (27 weeks) at the Tamale Central Hospital.

He weighed 0.7 kilogrammes (kg) instead of the normal weight of between 1kg to 2kgs that most preterm babies weigh.

His health situation was so serious that authorities at the Tamale Central Hospital transferred him to the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), which was thought to have specialists and the necessary facilities to save him.

As an extreme preterm baby, Little Tajudeen had breathing problems, his lungs were not well-developed, he could not see, he could not coordinate sucking amongst others, and had to be put in an incubator to guarantee him the right temperature. At the time he was brought to the TTH, it was thought that he was 'almost gone.'

MTN Ghana Foundation's interventions

Madam Victoria Awalenkak Agwiah, a Neonatal Nurse Specialist in-charge of preterm babies at Kangaroo Care Department of TTH, who was then a member of a team of general nurses, who attended to Little Tajudeen at the TTH's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in 2015, narrated to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) how they were able to save the boy's life.

Madam Agwiah said: 'The boy's situation was serious. However, we were able to nurse him, which was rare. It was all because of the equipment that we used at the new NICU and the conducive working environment. The boy is now eight years old and doing well, just like any normal child. The new place (NICU) was purposely designed for NICU services. If it were our old NICU, we would have lost that boy.'

She was full of praise for MTN Ghana Foundation for constructing the new NICU for the TTH and said little Tajudeen was brought in just two months after authorities of MTN Ghana and TTH formally opened the new NICU.

The MTN Ghana Foundation, in a bid to ensure improved health care for critically ill neonates, constructed the NICU for the TTH in 2015, and handed it over to the authorities of the TTH in May 2015.

The new facility (NICU) had two incubator rooms, one open crib, a kangaroo mother care room and breast milk expression room. It also has a conference room furnished with 22 chairs, a projector and a 42-inch LCD television, a changing room for staff, nurses' rest room, doctors' rest room, nurse manager's office, space for dispensary and a doctor's office. Besides, there is a waiting area for new patients and a kitchen for breast milk storage.

Madam Agwiah said even though the new NICU had saved and continued to save lives of thousands of babies, the case of Little Tajudeen was outstanding.

She said 'Since the construction of the new NICU, the number of cases we receive has increased. We are receiving even more critically ill neonates; some being born within 24 months, but we are not losing them. We are saving them. It is because of our sophisticated equipment and conducive environment.'

Mr Kasim Tajudeen, a resident of Tamale and Father of Little Tajudeen, told the GNA that 'I feel so good today. The NICU built by MTN Ghana Foundation was a life saver. But for that NICU, my boy would not have been alive today.'

The state of the TTH's old NICU prior to MTN's intervention

The TTH is a major referral facility serving the entire northern sector of the country. In view of this, it receives a lot of patients. Around 2010 when the TTH began rendering neonatal intensive care services, its NICU was not up to the standard to offer the best of care to critically ill neonates. The NICU was being run from a small cubicle at the maternity block of the TTH.

There was no chair for mothers and the nurses to sit, and where to even stand was a problem. The room was always hot because there was no ventilation, and the ceiling also broke leaving the sun's rays directly into the room. The NICU then admitted between six to 10 babies a day but had only three old incubators where three to four babies were kept in one incubator.

The NICU did not have a radiant warmer. So, the sun's rays served as the radiant warmer. Besides, the NICU also had only four old small beds, and one photo machine, which was not the standard one. Those days, the NICU did not really do kangaroo mother care because there was no chair to sit.

Simply put, the NICU did not have full equipment, and it was challenging for nurses to nurse critically ill neonates under such an environment. Due to this, some of the babies died, a situation, which was affecting efforts at reducing infant mortality in the country.

Madam Agwiah, who was then a member of a team of five general nurses, who started the NICU at TTH in 2010, said the situation was brought to the attention of MTN Ghana Foundation hence the construction of the new NICU.

New developments

The TTH had recently opened a new NICU on a new storey building, which had been completed as part of the second phase of the expansion works on the hospital. This new NICU, which is being used in addition to the one built by the MTN Ghana Foundation, is in the same building with the Maternity Block of the hospital.

Dr Adam Atiku, Acting Chief Executive Officer of TTH told the GNA that 'Through our partnership with the USAID and other partners, we built an ultra-modern NICU with modern equipment and gadgets. it is bigger and has more sophisticated and complex equipment.'

Dr Atiku, however, said 'the only thing that we do not have now is a mothers' hostel, where the mothers can rest and sleep when their children are on admission, and when it is time for them to express their breast milk and or feed their children, then they can come in' adding 'So, we are working with our partners to build a mothers' hostel .'

The way forward

Giving birth to critically ill neonates is a common phenomenon. The country continues to record a number of them each day. However, most health facilities do not have the necessary facilities to adequately cater for such babies. That single investment by the MTN Ghana Foundation has touched lives of many families by restoring their joy in the form of saving the lives of their babies.

It is, therefore, important that corporate organisations continue to partner the government to address some of the major problems affecting the people to improve their living conditions.

MTN Foundation has shown the way, leading the private sector to augment government efforts through its social responsibility services.

It is hoped that some private sector actors will open their doors to embrace the new hostel project to host mothers with neonates to be undertaken by the TTH.

Source: Ghana News Agency

he Network of Women Entrepreneurs (NETWET) has inaugurated its newly elected leaders to steer the affairs of the group for the next three years.

NETWET is an Association of skilled professionals such as fashion designers, cosmologists, caterers, formulators, beadmakers and other trades who have come together with the aim of providing self-support services to enhance and sustain their businesses through capacity building, information sharing, opportunity seeking and creating avenues for the marketing of their goods and services.

The Association seeks to become a voice for articulating women's employment issues and advocate for the enabling environment that ensures that women-led businesses thrive.

NETWET was established 10 years ago under the auspices of the Vocational Training for Females' (VTF) Programme, a Christian-Based NGO as a covering for the women who had benefitted from the VTF's project intervention as a way of providing continuous mentoring for the growth.

Ms Linda K. Agyei, The Director of the VTF Programme urged the members to remain resolute so that together they worked to overcome the barriers that prevent businesses from growing from one level to the next.

She commended them for their tenacity and sense of purpose, which had enabled them to sail through all the challenges over the last 10 years.

'My hope is that women-led businesses become stronger and force to reckon with when in Ghana,' she added.

Rev. Dr. B. I. Adu- Okoree, A Senior Lecturer at the Presbyterian University, Ghana (PUG) and a Development Consultant admonished the newly elected executives to be focused, creative, time conscious and work hard to erase the negative perceptions about trade professions and working attitudes of artisans. Another critical attention is for you to be prudent about the use of money and know that money is an input or an instrument to be used for the business.'

He advised them to be conscious of savings and investment which will enable them to grow their businesses from strength to strength.

Mrs Comfort Akrofi-Yanney, a Fashion Designer and member of the VTF Board asked the NETWET members to create success stories from their engagement with VTF so that their efforts will not be in vain.

In responding to the call of responsibility laid on them, Mrs Diana Appiah, the newly elected President requested the support of the entire membership of NETWET to help hold their hands up to meet their objectives.

She thanked the VTF for their unflinching support to the association over the years and hoped that with VTFs continuous support they will be able to meet expectations.

Source: Ghana News Agency