GHANAIAN TIMES

"Crisis in Palace, chief's American wife fights for her property", is the banner headline on the front page of the Times. The accompanying story says an African-American woman resident in ghana, Ms Sylvia Gregory, is embroiled in a fight with the chief of Edina Essaman in the Central Region, over her property. The Times says she has filed an application at the Cape Coast High Court seeking an order to restrain the chief, Nana Kwesi Tandoh the Fourth from interfering with her possession of a house at Ankaful. The plaintiff also wants Nana Tandoh to surrender the land on which the house is built to her. The paper says jointly sued in the action is Madam Bridget Hanson, the chief's wife. The Times says in her statement of claim, Ms Gregory said she visited Ghana in 1988 during which she met Nana Tandoh at Elmina and they became good friends. Subsequently, Nana Tandoh introduced her to his wife and the couple offered to live with her in their Ankaful residence, which offer the plaintiff accepted. The statement of claim said Ms Gregory was of great assistance to the couple financially and offered them gifts.

In the course of time, Nana Tandoh claimed to be in love with the plaintiff and proposed to marry her, and with the consent of his wife, he took Ms Gregory to the Cape Coast Municipal Assembly for the marriage process and they lived thereafter as man and wife. According to the statement of claim, the plaintiff gave out money freely for the upkeep of the house, set up the chief's first wife in business and bought a vehicle for the household.

The chief, the statement said convinced Ms Gregory that the house in which they lived was not convenient and that if she wanted to make Ghana her second home, it would be better for her to build a house.

She travelled to the United States and raised money for the defendants to build the house for her.

When the building was completed, Ms Gregory wound up her affairs in the United States and moved to Ghana.

The statement said the plaintiff gave one bedroom to Nana Tandoh and occupied the rest of the floor with her daughter, but the chief and the first wife wanted an equal share in the house. When Mr Gregory refused, her troubles started. The Times says the plaintiff contends that Nana Tandoh has refused to hand over to her documents covering two plots of land which she purchased, he has also refused to refund 4.2 million cedis he collected from her on the pretext of buying eight plots of land for her at Elmina. GRi

In another frront page story, the Times reports that as a result of superstitious beliefs among a number of communities in the South Tongu District in the Volta Region, efforts by the District Health Administration to promote family planning in the area, have yielded no results within the past four years. "They see the practice as a taboo. They say contraception obstructs the path of children sent from the gods of the land so if they adopt family planning measures, the gods will kill them", the Times quotes Dr John Eleezah, the District Director of health Services as saying.

Dr Eleezah told the Times that sometimes members of the communities avoided health workers who visited them to educste them on family planning issues. GRi

"S. Tongu 'chemists' give wrong drugs", is the disturbing headline of a story on the front page of the Times. The story says a number of chemical shops in the South Tongu District of the Volta Region, sell the wrong drugs to patients with prescriptions from the hospital. It says some of the chemical shops have engaged people with absolutely no knowledge about drugs and worse still, those in the shops do not even know the names of the drugs they sell, let alone the ailment they treat. The Times says the District Health Administration is not taking kindly to the alarming situation and has promised to take all necessary measures to protect the lives of innocent patients. GRi