rLG Boss Again!! - GH¢33 Million For Trees Not Planted

As details emerge of how the John Mahama led government sunk GH¢15 million into an NGO owned by Roland Agambire, of rLG fame, for a Guinea fowl project which has so far only 600 birds and 20 eggs to show for the money, he has been associated again with another ‘scandal’ of gargantuan proportions. Asongtaba Cottage Industries, the NGO owned by Mr Agambire, was handed GH¢33 million to plant trees in a re-afforestation project. Thus far, there is little on the ground to show for the huge investment sunk into this project. According to details emerging from this project, the John Mahama government, through SADA, gave GH¢33 million to Asongtaba for the planting of five million trees. This puts the cost per tree planted at GH¢6.60, a cost insiders claim has been inflated by as much as 70%. But even then, those who took part in the tree-planting exercise in the North say that less than 300,000 trees were planted in the project which took off in the second half of last year. It is recalled that on November 27, 2012, the Chief Executive Officer of SADA, Gilbert Seidu Iddi, claimed that it had cultivated 4,200,000 seedlings of tick, mahogany, cassia and shea in the five regions of the SADA ecological zone aimed at greening those areas and reducing climate change effects. This claim, the New Statesman can reveal, is not true but was only made a few weeks to the December 7, 2012 elections, solely to boost the electoral chances of then caretaker President, John Dramani Mahama. Evidence available to the New Statesman shows millions of Ghana cedis of cheques were issued from Ghana Government accounts into accounts of Asongtaba in Stanbic Bank, Access Bank and Ghana Commercial Bank just weeks before the election. Ongoing investigations by this paper suggest that hundreds of millions of Ghana cedis was spent in the last few weeks to the election to allegedly “buy and steal votes.” The details are shocking and go to show how much of the taxpayers’ money was used by the NDC to influence the election, only to come back after the election to demand of the people to tighten their belts and pay for the record overspending of 12.1% of the budget.   The Face Behind GHc12m Guinea Fowl Project RLG BOSS The New Statesman can disclose that the Chief Executive Officer of Ghanaian Telecommunications company, rLG communications, Roland Agambire, is the face behind Asongtaba Cottage Industries & Exchange Programme, the company behind the GH¢12 million Guinea fowl project. The guinea fowl project is a joint partnership between Asongtaba Cottage Industry and Savanna Accelerated Development Authority. Chief Executive of SADA, Gilbert Iddi, in justifying the investments, said model farms had been established in five regional capitals, with many more farms expected to be established in all the regional capitals. SADA is the initiative of President Mahama, who is said to have influenced all projects, as well as major decision, of the Authority. Checks conducted by the New Statesman at the Registrar General’s office indicate that Mr Agambire, a businessman with very close links to the President John Mahama, is the member of the Executive Council of this Asongtaba Cottage Industries and Exchange Programme, which was incorporated in the year 2004 and registered as a Non-Governmental Organisation. A Joy FM news report, filed yesterday by its Upper East regional correspondent, Albert Sore, revealed that the incubators on the guinea fowl farm, for which government sunk GH¢12 million, housed only 20 guinea fowl eggs. Also, through Asongtaba, the John Mahama-led NDC government took out GH¢33 million and said it used that to plant five million trees. This puts the cost per tree planted at GH¢6.60, a cost insiders claim has been inflated by 70%. But even then, those who took part in the tree-planting exercise in the North say that less than 300,000 trees were planted in the project which took off in the second half of last year. Further evidence available to the New Statesman shows millions of Ghana cedis of cheques issued from Government accounts were paid into accounts of Asongtaba in Stanbic Bank, Access Bank and Ghana Commercial Bank just weeks before the election. Ongoing investigations by this paper suggest that hundreds of millions of Ghana cedis was spent in the last few weeks to the election to allegedly “buy and steal votes.” The details are shocking and go to show how much of the taxpayers’ money was used by the incumbent to influence the election, only to come back after the election to demand of the people to tighten their belts and pay for the record overspending of 12.1% of the budget. The objectives of Asongtaba (translated from Guruni to mean ‘You scratch my back I scratch your back’) as spelt out on the ‘Form 3’ of the Company’s registration documents include: “To establish and train the youth in cottage industries like basketry etc., with the view to making them self employed; To help members in times of need; and To engage in cultural exchange programmes.” The business occupation of Roland Agambire, as stated on the form is that of an “Exporter” with residential address “H/No. 485/3, Madina, Accra”. As of 2004, four other Directors of the company included Miriam Ajavon, Lucy Ajavon, Paul Ajavon and William Asare. Strangely enough, all four directors have the same residential address as Mr Agambire and are all “Exporters”. The Secretary of the company, as stated on the registration form, is one Gregory Yeye, who is also an “Exporter”. “Eddie Nikoi Accounting Consultancy” is the company that has been provided on the registration document as the Auditor of the company. However, a notification in the change of directors was made to the Registrar General’s Department on October 30, 2009, where the original directors in the persons of Lucy Ajavon, Paul Ajavon and William Asare, all resigned from the company. George Yeye also resigned as secretary of the company and was replaced by Miriam Ajavon.

Source: Fiifi Arhin/thestatesmanonline.com

Amazon to buy social network site for readers Goodreads

Online retailer Amazon has said it will buy Goodreads, a book discovery and recommendation website.

Amazon's Kindle reader..

San Francisco-based Goodreads was founded in 2007, has 16 million members and is one of the most prominent online communities for readers.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and it is expected to be completed in the next quarter.

Amazon's electronic book service competes against a number of rivals including Google and Apple.

Goodreads is a social network for readers, where they can recommend, review and discover books. Users can also buy books from online retailers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

"Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading," Russ Grandinetti, vice-president for Kindle content at Amazon, said in astatement.

Goodreads co-founder, Otis Chandler, said the deal would allow the company to move faster in bringing its user experience to more people around the world.

bbc.co.uk

Global internet slows after biggest cyber attack in history

A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

Internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.

A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

It is having an impact on popular services like Netflix - and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.

Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation that aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.

To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists - a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.

Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host that states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet".

Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack. Cyberbunker has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.

Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC the scale of the attack was unprecedented. "We've been under this cyber-attack for well over a week”.

Writing exactly one year ago for the BBC, Prof Alan Woodward predicted the inherent weaknesses in the web's domain name system.

He wrote: "It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless."

"But we're up - they haven't been able to knock us down. Our engineers are doing an immense job in keeping it up - this sort of attack would take down pretty much anything else."

Mr Linford told the BBC that the attack was being investigated by five different national cyber-police-forces around the world.

He claimed he was unable to disclose more details because the forces were concerned that they too may suffer attacks on their own infrastructure.

The attackers have used a tactic known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the intended target with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to render it unreachable.

In this case, Spamhaus's Domain Name System (DNS) servers were targeted - the infrastructure that joins domain names, such as bbc.co.uk, the website's numerical internet protocol address.

Mr Linford said the attack's power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure.
bbc.com

DELL Corporaton Opens Support Centre In Accra

DELL Coporation, a leading Technology Company, has officially opened its new Office/Support Centre in Accra, Ghana to provide prompt, reliable and very efficient services to its customers across the country. Officials of the company announced this during a Press Conference on Tuesday, March 26, 2013 to introduce new services and support that the company had outlined to build a strong and massive existence in Africa. According to DELL Corporation, this will bring the services of the company closer to its customers. John Reynolds, Europe, Middle East and Africa-EMEA Pro-Support, Dell, said the opening of the Dell Support Centre will give Ghanaian customers direct access to Dell’s highly competent Technical Support Centers as well as building a support ecosystem in Ghana and to aid the global expansion of the company. According to Stewart Van Graan, General Manager Dell Southern and Central Africa, the company would continue to invest in human resources and also look forward to employing a number of Ghanaians into its system to curb the unemployment menace. He added that DELL was positioning itself to take advantage of the increasing opportunities in the Information Communication Technology market. Mr. Van Graan said an estimated 3billion people of the world population would be connected to various ICT facilities by 2014. He said the Ghanaian market was a priority to the company due to the increasing penetration of IT technologies in the country. He assured that Dell would continue to give the best to its customers, especially with the developing nature of technology and the tight competition in the market. In conclusion, Country Account Executive for Dell Corporation, Samuel Amanor said DELL was ready to deploy IT solutions that meet the needs of players in the telecommunication, Banking and Oil industry. He added that the corporation has products for banks to store data on their customers and also products to enhance quality education.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana

With Windows Blue comes fear of desktop's demise

Windows Blue portends the end of the desktop. That's what doomsayers are claiming today. Are they right?

Windows Blue rumored shutdown screen.

(Credit: Neowin)

Windows Blue has triggered a spate of doomsaying about the end of the Windows desktop.

Today there has been no shortage of articles claiming that Blue portends the end of Windows 8desktop mode. You know, the mode that most Windows 8 users spend their time in.

Rumored changes for Metro -- the Windows 8 touch-centric tablet mode -- include a different way to handle multitasking in side-by-side snap view. Possibly providing less reason to drop to the desktop for multitasking.

But what seems to have most observers worried is the changes to Control Panel.

Here's what Information Week said.

Build 9364's (Windows Blue) tablet-centricism is so pervasive...the ability to modify Control Panel settings -- which previously required that users shift to the desktop side of the OS -- from within the Modern UI. Indeed, with a Modern-flavored File Manager rumored to be in the cards, Microsoft seems keen to translate many legacy activities to its new touch-centered world. The changes can certainly be justified in the name of convenience but they will also wean users off the more familiar Explorer environment by encouraging them to conduct more of their business in the tablet UI.

And Extreme Tech, commenting on the tweaks to the Metro Control Panel said: "If you had any lingering doubts about whether Microsoft was trying to kill off the Desktop, here's confirmation."

Related stories

• Microsoft acknowledges Windows Blue, announces next Build conference

Another plausible scenario is that Blue is just a set of necessary tweaks to make Windows 8 easier to use.

And what does Microsoft have to say about all of this? Very little at this point. "Product leaders across Microsoft are working together on plans to advance our devices and services,a set of plans referred to internally as "Blue," Microsoft said today in its official blog.

That is the first time that Microsoft has officially mentioned Blue. But you can expect a lot more about Blue at the upcoming Build Conference in June -- also announced today.

Maybe we'll know more by then whether Microsoft is getting ready to consign the beloved, time-tested Windows desktop to oblivion -- or not.

The Windows 8 desktop we know and love.

Facebook gets approval to build plush second campus

Designed by famous architect Frank Gehry and accepted by Menlo Park's city council, the social network's additional campus will look like a tree-covered park.

Frank Gehry design for Facebook's second campus.

(Credit: Frank Gehry/Gehry Partners)

Menlo Park's city council has officially given Facebook the go-ahead to break ground on its swanky second campus.

The council voted 4-0, with one member absent, to let the social network build its 433,555-square-foot building that was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, according to theMercury News.

"Congratulations," Menlo Park Mayor Peter Ohtaki told Facebook officials yesterday, according to the Mercury News. "Where's the 'Like' button?"

It was revealed in August 2011 that the social network had plans to build a second campus. The site is located next to its current Menlo Park campus and is on 22 acres of land. It could accommodate up to 3,400 additional staffers.

Facebook unveiled the design of its sprawling, rooftop-gardened campus expansion in August. Gehry, the man behind the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the more recent, Bilbao-like Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, presented Facebook with the tree-covered campus design. In addition to the rooftop garden, the building boasts eco-friendly construction and an underground tunnel to the current campus.

"Our intent is that it almost becomes like a hillside, with the landscape really taking the forefront," Gehry's creative partner Craig Webb told the city council yesterday, according to the Mercury News.

The social network is also planning a major headquarters expansion. Menlo Park's city council approved Facebook's plans last April, but construction hasn't started yet. To get approval for the expansion, the company said it will supply the city with a number of benefits and also make a one-time payment of $1.1 million for city capital improvement projects, as well as a $500,000 donation to create a fund to serve residents in specific neighborhoods.

cnet

Cyberfight puts a drag on the Internet

A fight between a spam-fighting group called Spamhaus and a Dutch Web host Cyberbunker has been called the biggest public DDoS battle in history

A cyberwar is under way between two companies over a recent move made by one.

Spam-fighting organization, Spamhaus, which works with e-mail providers around the globe to block spam from entering in-boxes, has been in a battle over the last week that has seen distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks exceed by several times the typical attacks inflicted on organizations.

Spamhaus hosts a blacklist made up of servers that, it believes, are designed to send spam around the world. Recently, the organization added a Dutch Web hosting company named Cyberbunker to its blacklist. Cyberbunker, which gets its name from its headquarters in a former NATO bunker and allows its customers to maintain their anonymity, has built its business on accepting any and all customers, except those engaged in child pornography and terrorism-related activities.

Related stories

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• Syrian dissidents besieged by malware attacks

A spokesman for Spamhaus told The New York Times in a statement published todaythat a massive DDoS attack was launched against it on March 19. The attack, which has been ongoing since then, is somewhat different from typical DDoS attacks. Over the last week, the attackers have been hitting Spamhaus with attacks peaking at 300 gigabits per second -- six times greater than similar attacks designed to take down sites with powerful defenses, like banks.

The attack is targeting Spamhaus' Domain Name System (DNS) servers that connect to the underlying infrastructure of the Internet that turns typical Web addresses into numerical information that the technology can understand. That has resulted, according to reports, in some service slowdowns across the Internet, due to the sheer amount of data hitting the DNS through the attack.

According to the BBC, which earlier reported on the story and spoke with Spamhaus, Netflix is experiencing a slowdown, and it's possible that entire sites will either be slow or inaccessible due to the continued attacks. Spamhaus has, however, been able to stay up, thanks to its massive DNS server system and help from companies, including Google, that have helped carry some of the load.

For its part, Cyberbunker has not confirmed that it's behind the attacks, but Spamhaus believes that it is. Spamhaus has also alleged that "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia are also participating in the attacks.

CNET has contacted Cyberbunker for comment. We will update this story when we have more information.

Microsoft confirms it's shut off Windows 8-Google Apps calendar sync

Computerworld - Microsoft confirmed Monday that Windows 8 users who upgrade the Calendar app will no longer be able to synchronize that schedule with the calendar included with Google Apps for Business, Academic or Government.

"Google's paying customers and those with business accounts will not be able to sync their calendars in the [Calendar] app update," a Microsoft spokeswoman said Monday.

Calendar was one of three "Modern" UI (user interface) apps that Microsoft just upgraded for Windows 8 and Windows RT. The same day, The Vergereported that the updated Calendar app would not sync with Google Calendar.

Microsoft's confirmation that Google Apps account owners would no longer be able to sync schedules with Windows 8's Calendar was counter to what Microsoft had said previously, and even continued to state today.

"If you've already connected your Google account to your PC using the Mail, People, or Calendar apps, your email, calendar, and contacts will continue to sync properly. You don't need to do anything," reads a support document on syncing Windows 8 and Windows RT with Google's Calendar.

That document was meant to answer questions about Google's December 2012 decision to partially dump Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), a popular enterprise-grade synchronization service also widely used by consumers to sync their smartphones and tablets with company email, contacts and calendars.

Google said then that it would drop EAS support for new consumer customers as of Jan. 30, 2013. At the same time, however, it pledged to continue syncing existing free accounts and all paying Google Apps Business, Google Apps Academic and Google Apps Government customers.

According to Google, customers running Google Apps have been able to set up new devices to use Google Sync, which is powered by EAS, after the Jan. 30 deadline.

But Microsoft is not honoring those set-ups, whether previously by consumers or today by Google App for Business users.

"You'll no longer be able to sync your Google calendar with the Calendar app," Microsoft said on the support document in a revision that landed some time between Monday afternoon and today. "Unfortunately, with Google changing the way it supports EAS, your Google calendar can't sync with the Calendar app."

Google was not immediately available to comment or answer questions about whether paying Google Apps customers were still able to set up EAS on their end.

One analyst blamed both sides for the snafu.

"It's disappointing that both Google and Microsoft chose their own interests over end users," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, in an email. "This rift impacts both consumers and businesses negatively and needs to be addressed immediately. Impacted users won't change calendar services [just] to work with Windows 8, so it's up to Microsoft to do the right thing and implement CalDAV. [But] Google deserves ridicule for stopping EAS support, too."

CalDAV (Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV) is a Web standard for accessing online calendars and syncing scheduling information between devices as well as between different software.

Windows 8's Calendar does not support CalDAV. Microsoft declined to comment on whether it will add that functionality to the app.

Although Google Calendar supports CalDAV -- as do Apple's iOS and OS X calendars -- Microsoft's Hotmail (which includes a calendar) and Redmond's Outlook email client do not.

The only option Windows 8 and Windows RT users now have to maintain synchronization with Google Calendar is to ignore the Modern-style Calendar app update currently in the Windows Store.

BILL GATES THE UNKNOWN EXPLORES GHANA’S HEALTH PROGRESS

Bill Gates looks on as health official records numbers of children vaccinated at Ahentia Health Centre in the Awutu Senya district, central region of Ghana. —Photo by AFP

AHENTIA: The freckled man with the rectangular glasses instantly recognisable to much of the world stood in the West African heat, staring at data that had nothing to do with selling software.

But it was exactly where Bill Gates said he wanted to be, at a tin-roof clinic in a village in Ghana, listening to local health-care workers explain the progress they had made in vaccinating babies.

“These are the countries where I’m the least known,” the 57-year-old Microsoft co-founder told AFP later Tuesday, after a journalist pointed out that several of those at the clinic did not know who he was.

http://dawn.com

"Ghana is ready for online innovation!"

Ghana is ready to take advantage of what the internet has to offer.

Myjoyonline.com's and Ufrica.com's youngest project My Joy Market {http://www.myjoymarket.com) has hit staggering figures with 400 registered businesses, 3700+ registered sellers, and thousands of daily buyers in such a young phase, with marketing campaigns yet to begin.

"We are very excited with these results. It proves to us that Ghana needs innovative online platforms," as mentioned by Chris Philipp, CEO of Ufrica.

My Joy Market {http://www.myjoymarket.com} is an easy one-stop shop to reach a Ghana-wide audience with just a few clicks.

This online platform simply makes shopping and selling time efficient.

We've introduced innovative navigational features and possibilities to help users make quick, easy, and swift business interactions.

"It's simple. Individuals and businesses advertise their products or services on Joy Market, reaching thousands of potential clients. It's like having your own store in every house hold." - Chris Philipp, CEO of Ufrica.

MyjoyOnline's exclusive partnership with UFRICA {http://www.ufrica.com} will produce up to 6 interactive platforms this year alone.

For now, whether you’re looking to buy, have something to sell, or want promote your business online, check out myjoymarket.com today!

myjoyonline.

Anti-cyber threat centre launched

 BBC News

Cyber attack can cost companies profits and value

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• MI5 issues cyber-attacks warning
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A new initiative to share information on cyber threats between businesses and government is to be launched.

It will include experts from government communications body GCHQ, MI5, police and business and aims to better co-ordinate responses to the threats.

There will be a secure web-portal to allow access to shared information in real time, like a "secure Facebook".

UK networks are attacked by other states, criminals and companies seeking secrets, costing billions of pounds.

In 2012, the head of MI5 Jonathan Evans said the scale of attacks was "astonishing".

One major London listed company had incurred revenue losses of £800m as a result of cyber attack from a hostile state because of commercial disadvantage in contractual negotiations.

One government official told the BBC: "No one has full visibility on cyberspace threats. We see volumes of attack increase and we expect it to continue to rise."

The plan - the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP) - has emerged out of a 2012 pilot scheme known as Project Auburn.

Eighty companies from five sectors of the economy - finance, defence, energy, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals - were encouraged to share information.

The pilot was expanded to 160 firms. A more permanent structure is being announced on Wednesday.

The kind of information shared includes technical details of an attack, methods used in planning it and how to mitigate and deal with one.

At a new London base, large screens will monitor attacks and provide details in real-time of who is being targeted.

A group of 12-15 analysts with security clearance will work mainly during office hours.

Companies previously have been nervous of revealing publicly when they have been attacked because of the potential impact on reputation and share price if they are seen as having lost valuable intellectual property or other information.

It is hoped further firms will join the initial 160.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: "We know cyber attacks are happening on an industrial scale and businesses are by far the biggest victims in terms of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft, with losses to the UK economy running into the billions of pounds annually.

"This innovative partnership is breaking new ground through a truly collaborative partnership for sharing information on threats and to protect UK interests in cyberspace."

Government officials say they continue to be uncomfortable with an EU draft directive which would force companies to disclose when they have been attacked.

They hope a voluntary partnership will provide a more workable solution.

Windows Store Hits 50,000 Apps Mark, Unofficially

The numbers vary for different countries, which has enforced Microsoft from making it official.      It seems Windows is steadily gaining its mark in the operating system market. After releasing the latest Windows platform last year, Microsoft had promised that the Windows app ecosystem will be frequently updated with numerous apps and reach a respectable app count in the next couple of months. According to an Engadget report, the Windows Store has reportedly crossed over 50,000 apps in the store. To be precise, the number stands at 50,380 apps in the US store. The numbers could vary in different markets, which seems to be the only issue with Microsoft not confirming the numbers more frequently. The feat achieved by Microsoft could be seen as a sign that developers are comfortable with creating native apps for the platform and it seems looking at BlackBerry 10's effort, that is no ride in the park. Also, the fact that Apple Mac App Store currently holds 14,000 apps, is astonishing considering that the store was launched way back in 2011. The report states that Microsoft has currently declined to confirm the numbers, however, the software giant has said that the app count may vary from country to country. For now, it is safe to presume that many app writers are positive about the future of Microsoft's latest touch-enabled tile version platform and even though the hardware devices are not selling as per expectations, Microsoft would be quietly confident of faring better in the coming times.  EFYTIMES News Network

Prez Mahama Receives Bill Gates At Flagstaff House

Prez Mahama meets Bill Gates President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday commended Mr Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, for his tremendous support to Ghana's Public Healthcare system, especially in the area of HIV/AIDS. He also mentioned School Feeding Programme, fight against malaria and maternal healthcare as some of the programmes the Bill Gate Foundation had supported in Ghana. President Mahama gave this commendation when he received Mr Bill Gates at the Flagstaff House. Mr Bill Gates is in Ghana for a two-day working visit to see some of the projects his Foundation is executing and to participate in the immunization tour. President Mahama said the support from the Bill Gates’ Foundation had helped to boost the nutritional needs of children and increase school enrolment, making Ghana reach the universal enrolment level. On malaria, President Mahama stated that government was using new methods of tackling the malaria parasite by the use of Bio Lavaesite to supplement the existing methods. President Mahama however expressed disappointment over Ghana's poor show in handling sanitation and maternal mortality, making Ghana lag behind achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The President assured that the government was adopting new ways of tackling the sanitation situation in the country. Mr. Bill Gates said he was in the country to observe Ghana's healthcare system and the need to replicate it elsewhere and promised to partner with Ghana to ensure that the health needs of the people are met in the coming years.

Source: GNA

Vodafone tops 2013 Ghana Telecom Awards nominations list with 13 nods

Vodafone Ghana has recorded 13 nominations in the third edition of the Ghana Telecom Awards scheduled to take place at the plush Movenpick Hotel on 31st May, 2013. Now in its third year, the established Ghana Telecom Awards (GTA) that celebrates and gives recognition to the achievements made by those in the Telecom and related industry in Ghana has kicked off preparation for this year’s event

According to the Group Publisher of MobileWorld Magazine, Mr Akin Naphtal, the prestigious award has now become a symbol of recognition to the entire industry as a mark of leadership, quality and innovation in services.

The unique awards ceremony provides a great networking opportunity to reinforce relationships with partners, entertain clients or reward staff with outstanding performance.

He further said that the industry that has contributed much to the Ghana economy needs to have a befitting platform where all stakeholders can come together and celebrate their achievement. This award night promises to bring to the guests entertainment and quality networking. Kafui Dey with top comedian will be on ground to entertain guests.

Telecom Vendor of the Year                            

Ericsson

Huawei

Nokia Siemens

Alcatel Lucent

Smartphone of the of Year

BlackBerry Bold 9930

Nokia Lumia 920

Samsung S III

Tecno N3

Telecom Wholesale Provider of the Year

MainOne Cable

Vodafone Wholesale

Glo One

Mobile Innovative Product of the Year

Glo Biiiiig 5

Airtel 5x Obolobo

Tigo Unlimited Internet Access

Vodafone 1 Ghana

Tower Company of the Year

ATC Ghana

Eaton Towers

Helios Towers

Ihs

Best Mobile Money Service of the Year

Airtel Money

MTN Mobile Money

Tigo Cash

Telecom Brand of the Year

Airtel

MTN

Tigo

Vodafone

Glo

Infrastructure Company of the Year

MainOne Cable

ATC Ghana

Vodafone Wholesale

Eaton Towers

Best ISP of the Year

Busy Internet

Zipnet

TeleData ICT

Vodafone

Best Use of Social Media

Vodafone

Tigo

Samsung Ghana

MTN Ghana

CSR Initiative of the Year

Airtel

MTN Foundation

Tigo Foundation

Vodafone Foundation

Best Bank in ICT Innovation

GTBank

Zenith Bank

Fidelity Bank

UT Bank

ICT Support Company of the Year

Microsoft

Google

IBM

CWG Ghana

Software Company of the Year

BSystems Ghana

theSOFTtribe Limited

Rancard Solutions Ltd

DreamOval

Enterprise Network and Internet Solution Provider

ZIPNet Business

Superlock Technologies Limited (STL)

KNET

COMSYS

Best Mobile Broadband Service of the Year

MTN

Vodafone

Airtel

Tigo

Glo

Distributor of the Year

i2 Itsalat

Telefonika

Mobile Zone

Midcom

Best Customer Care

Airtel

MTN

Tigo

Vodafone

Glo

Marketing Campaign of the Year

Airtel

MTN

Tigo

Vodafone

Glo

Best Business Service of the Year

MTN Business

Vodafone Business Solutions

Airtel Enterprise Solutions

ZIPNet Business

Operator of the Year

Airtel

MTN

Tigo

Vodafone

Glo

CEO of the Year

Phillip Sowal, CEO, Airtel

Michael Ikpoki -CEO, MTN

Kyle Whitehill, CEO, Vodafone

Adil El Youssefi, CEO, Tigo

PUBLISHER’S CHOICE

Special Recognition to the Telecom Industry

ICT Personality of the Year

Female Technologist of the Year

MobileWorld Lifetime Achievement Award