DAILY GRAPHIC

The lead story on the front page of the Graphic is on the move to decongest the country's prisons. The Graphic reports that a special task force has been set up under the auspices of the Attorney-General's Department to study the cases of all accused persons who have been on long period of remand and make recommendation for either their immediate discharge or speedy trial. The story headlined: "Task force to review remand cases", says membership of the task force comprises a representative each of the Interior Ministry, Prison Service Judicial Service and the Police Service. It is under the chairmanship of Mr. J.E. Amonoo-Monney, Director of Public Prosecutions. According to the Graphic, the task force, for a start, will work on the cases of suspects who have been on remand for one year and upwards. GRi "Review high public spending - Tuffour", is the headline of another front page of the Graphic which says the acting Controller and Accountant- General, Mr. R.K. Tuffour, has cautioned that unless steps are taken to reverse the high public expenditure, the country's recurrent budget could be consumed by interests on public debts. Giving figures to support his assertion, Mr. Tuffour said whereas public expenditure increased by 23.3 per cent from 1995 to 1996, public debt interest alone rose to 83 per cent over the same period. "Clearly if nothing is done to reverse this trend, it would not be long for public debt to take the biggest portion of our recurrent expenditure", the Graphic quoted him as saying. Mr. Tuffour was speaking at the opening of a two-day workshop on cash management under the Public Financial Management Reform Programme (PUFMARP) at Akosombo yesterday. GRI

In a back page story, the Graphic reports that a Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, Mr. Nayon Bilijo, has called on African governments to develop forest plantations to sustain the dwindling forests on the continent. According to the paper, Mr. Bilijo said some well-known and widely-used species such as wawa, are getting extinct from the forests and expressed the fear that if measures are not taken, the Sahara desert may stretch to the rest of the continent. Mr. Bilijo made the call when he opened a three-day conference on forestry research in Accra yesterday. GRi