Ghanaian Times

The Times reports on its front page that the names of hundreds of pupils who qualified for admission into senior secondary schools in the Upper East Region of Ghana are not on the master list used by headmasters for their selection. This has been blamed on computer error. The paper says Mr Aloysius N. Addih, the Upper East Regional Examinations Officer, said initially the problem was thought to be limited to five schools - Akurugu-Da-Bao and Sirigu Junior Secondary Schools in the Kassena-Nankana District, and Wobil, Sheaga and Datoko Junior Secondary Schools in the Bolgatanga District. But he said the problem kept mounting by the continued release of additional names from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). According to Mr Addih, of the 2,960 students who were initially listed on the master results slip, 55 were selected by the computer for Bawku Secondary-Technical School. The Times says he produced a supplementary list which added 33 other students to the school's list Despite WAEC's claim that it had nothing to do with the admission discrpancies, Mr Addih is reported as saying, "the error could not completely be the total mistake of the schools concerned".

"GWSC to open up to private sector", says the Times in another front page story. The story says bidding to select investors for the Private Sector Participation (PSP) programme in the Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation (GWSC) would begin in June, this year, for the scheme to take off by the first quarter of next year. Under the programme to be implemented in the urban centres, the sales and production aspect of GWSC's operations would be taken over by the private sector, while the corporation would assume a supervisory role besides maintaining ownershp of all its assets. The Times says the Managing Director of the corporation, Mr Charles Adjei, disclosed this at Cape Coast, the Central Regional capital, at a meeting with the staff. Mr Adjei explained that the bidding would be opened to investors from all over the world, adding that the objective of the programme was to inject private capital into GWSC's operations to assist it to expand. The paper says Mr Adjei thereffore allayed the fears of both the workers and the public that the corporation would be sold out.