Ugly scenes at NDC congress

...Amidst vote-buying
Posted: The Chronicle | Tuesday, January 05, 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The recently held Greater Accra Regional Delegates Conference of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) witnessed serious issues of vote-buying and underhand dealings, which undermined the integrity of the election in one way or the other.
This was when certain candidates and their agents tried to twist the rules of the game in their favour. As the election was underway, generating a lot of interest and enthusiasm among supporters of the two main contestants, Ade Coker and Danny Anang, who were running for the Chairmanship position, money started exchanging hands.

In the heat of events, agents and close associates of one of the contestants, were seen doling out GH¢200 to some of the delegates, in the full glare of party executives who were seated on the high table.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo-Prampram, Mr. E. T. Mensah, and the MP for Sege, Mr. Alfred Abayateye, all in the Rawlings camp, were openly campaigning for Ade Coker.

The paper also chanced on a damning document, which was being circulated by some of the party supporters as a smear campaign against Danny Anang. In the said documents, copies of which are in the possession of The Chronicle, one William Jackson Mensah, who claims to be a Ghanaian businessman living in Austria, was alleged to have sent a whopping amount of 120,000 Euros through the Western Union Money Transfer to Danny Anang, who until the regional conference, was the incumbent Chairman of the party in the region, to help run the party’s campaign.

However, a close look at the documents gives much room for suspicion and doubt, since it appears to be intended for mischief. Some of the dates for the receipts of the said money, date back as far as 1990, 1992, 1998 and the year 2000, when the party had not been formed.

As these documents and money were flying all over the place, the voting was still ongoing.

These and other mischievous and last minute underhand dealings have cast a slur on the integrity of the elections.