Police say they were overwhelmed by the large crowd when a stampede killed four people at a church in Ghana’s capital, Accra, on Sunday.

Thousands of people flocked to the evangelical church for “holy water”, which they believed had healing powers, leading to the crush.

“All of us were caught by surprise. No-one knew the crowd will be so huge,” said police spokesman Freeman Tetteh.

The church is run by prominent Nigerian preacher TB Joshua.

He is one of the wealthiest and most popular evangelical clerics in Africa and his Synagogue Church of All Nations claims it can perform miracles, such as curing blindness.

‘Devastated’

Mr Tetteh told the BBC’s Newsday programme there was a larger than expected crowd at the service after church officials announced that “holy water” would be given to worshippers.

“The church was also caught by surprise… Nobody can apportion blame [at this stage],” he said.

“We need to investigate and establish responsibility.”

Some of the wounded were in a critical condition in hospital, Mr Tetteh said.

The stampede took place when people at the back of the church began to push to get to the altar, AFP news agency reports.

“The crowd surged forward and became uncontrollable,” Mr Tetteh told the BBC.

One worshipper, Gertrude Sumbamala said she had suffered a broken leg after being caught up in the stampede, AFP reports.

“People from the back, they pushed… and they fell on us. So we were battered by a lot of forces,” Ms Sumbamala is quoted as saying.

The church’s Rev Sam McCaanan told local radio station Citi News that the stampede was regrettable.

“We are devastated, it’s very unfortunate and we are very sorry,” he is quoted as saying.

Source: BBC.

Ms Laura Lo Castro presenting her credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Effron Lungu at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Headquarters today. Picture, courtesy of UNHCR Zambia

Newly-appointed UNHCR Representative for Zambia, Ms. Laura Lo Castro, has assumed official duties after presenting her credentials in Lusaka today to Honourable Effron Lungu, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Ms. Lo Castro, an Italian national, prior to her appointment to Zambia served as Chief of the Programme Analysis and Support Section, Division of Programme Support and Management at UNHCR’s Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

She has also held several other senior positions within UNHCR in Geneva, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Rwanda.

During her stewardship of UNHCR in Zambia and in fulfilling UNHCR’s mandate of protecting  and finding durable solutions for refugees, Ms. Lo Castro looks forward to a sustained and effective working relationship with the Government of Zambia, members of the diplomatic community, UN Agencies, non-governmental organisations and all other major stakeholders and interlocutors in the refugee programme in Zambia.

Ms. Lo Castro takes over from Ms. Joyce Mends-Cole, who completed her assignment and has taken up her new functions as UNHCR’s Representative to the Republic of Tanzania.

Zambia currently hosts some 51,000 refugees and others of concern, mostly from Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and Uganda. The vast majority reside in two refugee settlements – Mayukwayuka in Western Province and Meheba in North Western Province, while others live in urban areas or are self-settled in various locations.

Zambia Direct Democracy Movement (ZDDM) has noted that the three suspended judges will not receive a fair hearing.

ZDDM President Edwin Sakala charged that there is something wrong with the tribunal and believes that the judges will not receive a fair trail unless an independent and impartial judge handles the matter. He cited a case where people who will testify are expected to register their names and state what they want to testify as one call for
suspicion.
“Our suspicion on this is premised on the fact that, the people who hold the register will exclude all people that does not have incriminating evidence against the three judges and admit all those that have incriminating evidence if there is any.

As everyone knows by now, the reason that led to the suspension of the three judges were that they were just doing their job. The judgement which brought out the matter was landmark in that, it compelled the people who consider themselves most powerful in the Zambian society to pay back the money they owe the Development Bank of Zambia.

The money in that Bank is tax payer’s money and any person who borrows is supposed to pay back with interest,” said Sakala.

The ZDDM president has since appealed to Malawian Judge Lovemore Chikopa who is the chairperson for the tribunal to be conscious and recue himself from the matter.
He said the three Zambian judges that were unceremonious suspended for doing their job sating that they are now being subjected them to humiliation by the tribunal.

Judge Chikopa should have the idea of what happened and should therefore consider staying away from the matter for this reason. President Michael Sata constituted a tribunal to be chaired by Judge Chikopa which is looking at corruption allegation against three suspended judges.

Sakala said this in a statement to Zambia Eye.

A consortium of Civil Society Organizations that  have declared black Friday have vowed to go ahead with their protest to pressure government  over its decision to remove the subsidy.
The CSO which includes; Foundation For Democratic Process FODEP operation young voter, and the anti voter party project-AVAP- said they will continue with the Friday’s protest until, government reserves the decision.

Spokesperson, for the group, Guess Nyirenda who is OYV Executive Director said in an interview on Monday that the organizations will not be intimidated by threats of arrest by government. He said they will continue mobilization and further commended students from the three public universities for demonstrating last Friday.

The originations are pressuring government to reverse the decision to remove the subsidy.

Former Finance Minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane said government has already exhausted all the budgetary allocation for the by-elections. Dr. Musokotwane who is also Liuwa MMD Member of Parliament and Chairperson for Finance in the MMD said government only allocated four Million kwacha rebased towards the exercise this year.

He said one by-election cost over 1 million kwacha rebased which is alot of money and government has continued to hold many unnecessary by-elections.

According to Hot Fm monitored by Zambian Eye on Monday, May 20, 2013, Dr. Musokotwane said government has already held over four by-elections this year while another five will be held soon one in June and four others in July and a lot more are expected to come before the end of this year.

Commerce Deputy Minister Miles Sampa on Sunday disclosed that government only budgeted for about five by-elections this year.

Commerce Deputy Minister Miles Sampa has disclosed that government had only budgeted for about five by-elections.

This is despite the country having unprecedented number of by-elections mainly due to resignation of opposition Members of Parliament to join the ruling Patriotic Front.
The country will in the next two months alone hold five by-elections four of which have been as a result of these defections.

Sampa who is former Deputy Minister of Finance said it is however necessary to hold all by-elections even if they exceed the budget because it is constitutional. He said the constitution spells that there should be by-elections after the resignation of any Member of Parliament adding that failure to do so would be going against the constitution.

The Deputy Minister also brushed aside insinuations that the large cabinet under the Patriotic Front (PF) government is a drain on the economy saying it will not bring any benefit if the cabinet is reduced. Sampa said he was willing to forgo fuel allowance if people feel that it can help reduce poverty.

He said this during Assignment programme hosted by Muvi, a private Lusaka based Television on Sunday evening, May 19, 2013.

Meanwhile, Communication Director in the Office of the MMD President, Muhabi Lungu who featured on the same programme warned that there will be chaos in the country if the PF remain arrogant and does not reverse the decision to remove subsidy.

Lungu argued that previous attempts by the past governments to remove subsidy sparked riots in the country.

The MMD official also dispelled reasons that the removal of the subsidy is aimed at allocating resources to other needy sectors saying the MMD did major projects like the Mongu-Kalabo roads, Levy Mwanawasa stadium and other big projects while implementing subsidies.

Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba who is also ruling Patriotic Front General Secretary failed to categorically tell the nation that his Government was not inducing opposition Members of Parliament to join PF.

Kabimba has said the removal of maize and fuel subsidies will help Government recover K3.6 trillion per year.

Speaking when he featured on ZNBC’s Sunday Interview programme this evening, monitored by The Independent Observer , Kabimba said by removing the subsidies his Government will recover K300 billion per, the situation he said will help his Government to take control of the economy.

He said PF was taking Zambia to economic independence to help Zambia to take control of its economy.

“PF want to take control of the natural resources and see to it that the benefits trickle down to the poor people of Zambia. The removal isn’t meant to punish Zambians though we seem to have some temporal upsets which we believe are short-lived, but prosperity shall judge us on this move.

“Subsides have not benefited the poor, but they have always benefited those that can afford.  Subsidies never worked for UNIP, MMD and if the subsidies had worked, we couldn’t have the poor in the country.” he said.

He said Zambia was neither the producer of fuel nor the determiner of the fuel prices hence the move to remove the subsidy.

Mr Kabimba who is also Justice Minister was at loss when the Anchor of the programme Grevazio Zulu asked him if his PF Government was being stuck in being over ambitious.

He said there was nothing wrong in being over ambitious and that the people criticizing PF had not ready the PF manifesto.

Meanwhile Mr Kabimba was at loss when he was asked if PF was buying MPs to call for by-elections which gobble more than K7 billion per single by-election.

He instead turned the subject into a human right matter where he linked it to freedom of association rather than to the question by Grevazio of induced parliamentary by-elections.

The Minister also admitted that whenever an MP takes a political sacrifice to dump his political party to join PF the PF manifesto was clear that it will always give such ones a priority but said the powers to appoint them as Minister was with the President.

He said by-election were an expensive undertaking but that were a contingent which Government was ready to take and in case of budget over run his Government could easily make a supplementary budget and take it to parliament for approval.

On size of Government which has about 83 Minister both Cabinet and deputies he said the size was also in the party manifesto.

The Minister was also toned down when Grevazio had ready a letter from CCZ in which the church issued a concern of people suffering and dying from hunger and poor stocking level of drugs in stocking in hospitals.

The Minister failed to answer these questions;

Is the removal of subsidies the meaning of more money in people’s pockets?

Have you gotten stuck in being over ambitious?

The removal of subsidies was it as a result of cutting edge on donor funds?

Which one is the next subsidy to go, is it university bursary?

Are you willing to down size your Government ministries?

By Herman Kapepe