Some communities in the Upper West Region were cut off from the rest of the region and without help after torrential rains.

Their homes were washed away, bridges and farmlands submerged, and property destroyed.

The painful thing about it is their roads became unmotorable, and transport managers increased the fares. Some of them who spoke to JoyNews were unhappy about the situation. One woman told regional correspondent Rafik Salam that "I am scared to fall in the water, but I have no option, so I will try to cross so that I can go to the market to buy food or else my family and I will go hungry."

Roads Minister Kwesi Amoako Atta visited the region to inspect roads affected by flooding. He promised to begin the processes to fix the deplorable roads immediately.

The Region’s Security Council called for help to control the situation as the meteorological agency forecasts more rain for the area.

This pitiful situation got worse when the national disaster management organization, which had relief items, could not send them to those who had been affected by the floods – because roads they would drive on had caved in!

The assemblymen tried to improvised in fixing the raods as narrated by the regional NADMO coordinator Ahmed Mustapha Ahmed "some of the assemblymen say they would use stones and other materials to fix partys of the road, so when they are able to do that, we will send the ietms to those affected immediately."

That proposed solution did not materialize because the quantum of damage done to the roads was just too dire for stones and other materials to be used. 

By the end of the week, however, some buckets, mattresses, cups, rice and cooking oil, among others, were sent to the affected victim.

Inoculation for the Johnson and Johnson jabs begun in the Greater Accra Region. It went so smoothly in some centers, but some centers had a difficult time. This was the experience of one of those who had joined the queue from as early as 5 am "since morning, they have not told me anything, and it's 11 am now; I am so hungry and tired, yet I have not been told anything. I have an underlying condition so I don’t know what to do."

Another Nother told Joy News, "we’ve stood here for so long only for them to tell us the vaccines are finished, so we should come back tomorrow; this Is not fair at all."

There were long queues at some centres on Friday, which marked the final day for inoculation. However, to avoid chaos, the Ghana health service, through its Director of Public Health, Dr Franklin Asiedu Bekoe, assured; "as long as there are doses, we will not stop the vaccination; we will continue until all the doses are finished."

A viral video showing a school chaplain and lawyer of the St. Monica’s College of Education in Asante Mampong kissing three students on their lips got people talking!

The explanation was that the students had distinguished themselves and were being honoured with a Peace Kiss by Rev Father Obeng Larbi during a Sunday Mass Service.

President of FIDA-GhanaAfua Brown-Eyeson described this action as a "culture of entitlement."

Explaining further, she noted, "some of these men in authority make it look like girls can just do their bidding; sexually."

Her other concern was that action is usually not taken in such incidences because of those involved, especially from the church.

"We tend to cover these things even when we see them. even in instances where the law wants to work, we find people in a position of power to try to take the matter out of these persons with the excuse that they want to handle the situation out of court because of the sensitivity of the matter."

FIDA, however, sees this matter as a test case for the law to work again. Well, the school begun providing counselling for the girls involved and Rev Father Larbi was relieved of his duties at the College. But, that was not all; he was reported to the police and invited by the Ashanti Regional Police to assist with investigations.

Rev Father Larbiissued an apology letter in which he explained, "I seem to have taken a number of things for granted. I did not think my behavior through and I admit that the act and its entirety are wrong even in the absence of Covid-19."

The Rev Father end his letter with a plea "I sincerely apologise to my Archbishop, the entirely of Anglican Communion, the college, the affected students and their families and the generality of the public."

Environmental officers in the Eastern Region were not taking the condition they had been compelled to bury the Covid-19 corpse lightly. They say lack of logistics, especially hearse to transport the dead to the cemeteries, made their work difficult. Acting district Environmental Health Officer for Denkyembour, Yaw Akwaa Lartey, had more to say "even vehicles, motorbikes or computers to enable store data on this Covid-19 has been a challenge. Some of us don’t even have offices in the district zones. So this makes our work very difficult."

The University lectures who have been out of the classroom for two weeks, demanding better conditions of service, finally agreed to end their strike. They are asking to implement a 2012 Single Spine package that put entry-level lecturers on a salary of $2,084. The National Labor Commission filed a suit against the lecturers, describing their strike as illegal. But that has been withdrawn now.

The students who were forced to bear the brunt of the strike are now asking for additional time to get ready for their end of semester examinations ‘we plead with the lectures to give us one week to prepare because of the kind of posture we had before their strike has left us so we need time to get ready.’ 

The lecturers, through their national President noted they would consider the request of the students. Meanwhile, the President expressed concern about the continuous impasse between the two groups and expressed hope that "a strong and binding agreement would be finally agreed on by the parties."

Government mounted a strong defense of its Agenda 111 hospital project aimed at improving health infrastructure and ultimately healthcare delivery at all levels across the country. The projects are scheduled to be completed in 18 months and are expected to deliver a world-class health facility to each district, capable of attending to all major ailments.

But the opposition NDC and their MPs in parliament raised concerns and questioned government ability to carry through the project. The party’s 2020 flagbearer John Mahama on his Thank-You Tour in the Upper East Region, noted, "it’s an afterthought that suddenly they realised that we must be doing some infrastructure so Agenda 111 has been conjoined and there is no transparency on how he money is going to be used."

In a sharp rebuttal, the Presidential Advisor on health Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, said, "if you are in one of the districts you would not say that and every hospital project that we have, has a source of funding and the government is going to fund them."