How NALAG Prez `fooled` NPP
Posted: Friday, February 26, 2010
By Charles Takyi - Boadu
Extensive investigations conducted by The Chronicle have uncovered how the former President of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), George Kyei Baffour, ‘fooled’ the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) into believing that he was one of their kind, and subsequently gave him an appointment.
Documents in the possession of the paper indicate that at the time he was serving under the Kufuor-led NPP administration, Mr. Kyei Baffour was not just a card-bearing member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), but was indeed a paid-up member of the Ahenbronum branch in the Asante Akim South constituency of the party.
He was therefore funding the NDC as a party in diverse ways, through his special monetary contributions, for organising the party.
Though he is believed to have joined the NPP as a registered member in the year 2004, he was still holding on to his membership of the NDC, as of the year 2009, when he was serving in the NPP government.
This gives a clear indication that Mr. Kyei Baffour did not either resign or retire his membership of the NDC, and still owed allegiance to both parties. The situation compelled some members of the Asante Akim North constituency of the NPP, who realised his game plan, to send a petition to the national headquarters of the party.
This was the time he declared his intention to contest for the constituency secretary of the Asante Akim North constituency of the NPP.
The petition, which was signed by one Stephen Boampong, and sent to the national executives of the party through party Chairman, Peter Mac Manu, was meant to block Mr. Kyei Baffuor’s bid to contest for the position.
Mr. Boampong stated that he and his colleagues had gathered information from members of the NDC in Konongo, that Kyei Baffuor’s name still existed as a founding member of the NDC, and that he had never written any letter of resignation to the party.
For this reason, the petitioners said Kyei Baffuor was still a member of the NDC.
However, the leadership of the party did not pay heed to the petitioner, and Kyei Baffuor eventually became the Asante Akim North constituency secretary of the NPP.
Strenuous efforts to reach Kyei Baffuor on his cell phone to get his input into this story has proven futile, since the network operator kept saying the phone was either switched off, or out of coverage area.