I will strip NPP naked if they dare expel me

-Appiah-Ofori
Posted: The Chronicle | Wednesday, August 5, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa in the Central Region, Mr PC Appiah-Ofori has threatened to strip the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu if they dare expel him from the party.

“I don’t want to do anything that will destroy the party, but if they continue to threaten me or expel me from the party then they should not blame me for any mishap,” he warned.

Though he has not yet been summoned before the party's Disciplinary Committee neither has he received any form of query about his claim that his colleague NPP MPs were influenced and later compensated by the previous government to vote in favour of the sale of Ghana Telecom (GT) to Vodafone UK, Mr. Appiah-Ofori is confident that any attempt to throw him out will not serve the interest of the party.
Speaking to journalists, he accused the Minori1y leader of being behind the call to expel him from the NPP just to settle personal scores with him.

When the acclaimed anticorruption crusader was asked his basis for accusing Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu of orchestrating his expulsion calls, he claimed the Minority Leader misconducted himself once and he (Appiah-Ofori) “abused him on the air at one radio station in Takoradi.”

“I abused him, told him that he is stupid and therefore he is anxious to get retribution. He organized the NPP caucus in Parliament to place me before the investigations committee headed by Papa Owusu-Aokomah,” he added.

He continued; “I went there to say, yes. 1 abused him because he disparaged me, they played the tape and what I said was on the tape...even today, if he crosses my path I will abuse him. He is looking for an opportunity to probably incite the rest of the MPs against me but they have to be very careful because I have documents to prove my case and some other things.”

The Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa legislator further noted that “I will be the most stupid person to come out to say these things against the part but if they seek me, I will be ready to defend myself, and if in the cause of defending myself, any damage is done to the party, then they should not hold me responsible."

The beleaguered MP traced the root of his predicament to concerns he raised about the sale of GT to Vodafone when the deal was brought to Parliament for debate and approval.

According to him, most of the NPP MPs who were then in the Majority did not examine the agreement very well to see whether it was in the interest of Ghana or not, before voting in favour of it.

Mr. Appiah Ofori said he was compelled by circumstances to draw his colleague MPs’ attention to the negative impact of the sale and that it would not benefit Ghanians since the sale was not in the interest of the nation.

According to PC, when he spoke to Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, who was then a member of the leadership of the Majority, and he (Mensah-Bonsu) appealed to him not to release the information on the floor of the house, because it might disturb the government's plan to sell GT.

As a result, PC alleged that his colleague MPs colluded with the Speaker not to allow him speak in parliament on the day in question. It was after the Vodafone deal had been passed that Appiah Ofori claimed he heard the NPP MPs who voted for the sale of GT were rewarded with a sum of US $5,000 each.

Upon hearing this news, he claimed he queried the Mr Mensah-Bonsu who confessed to him that it was true. “I then wrote to the party leadership that they give me my share of the money,” he noted.

The party leadership and MPs have rejected the claims.

Despite the difficult times

NDC chair promises better days ahead
Posted: The Chronicle | Tuesday, August 04, 2009

By Charles Takyi Boadu


The Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Daniel Anang has asked members of the party to exercise patience to enable the government deliver on the numerous promises it made to Ghanaians during the 2008 electioneering campaign.
Mr. Anang, who has just begun a visit to the various constituencies in the region to get first hand information about the existing situation on the ground, told The Chronicle in an interview that after interacting with people in four constituencies; including his own Ledzokuku constituency, Ayawaso East and Central, Weija and Ablekuma Central, he got the impression that people are disenchanted about existing conditions in the country.

As justified as their grievance may be, he noted that it was too early in the day for people to start grumbling, since President Mills and his NDC administration has a lot of work on their hand to do, having inherited a legacy of a virtually broken economy from the previous NPP administration.

He noted that government was bent on first fixing the economy, which would translate into improve the living conditions of Ghanaians, and therefore urged them to bid their time - because ‘better days are yet to come.’

According to him, most of the people he interacted with complained about unavailability of job opportunities and how they cannot reach their representatives in government, including their own Members of Parliament (MPs).

Mr. Anang however diffused the impression that the MPs have neglected the people since found themselves in government.

Now that Parliament is on recess, he believes it would give the MPs an opportunity to have frequent interactions with the people, since their schedule are not too tight.

That notwithstanding, he urge MPs and others who have been given the opportunity to serve in government to make themselves available to the people since they are the very people on whose backs they rode to power.

On the issue of employment creation, the Regional Chairman emphasised that government has plans to create more job opportunities for not only members of the NDC, but for all Ghanaians.

For this reason, he indicated that sooner than later, government would role out a comprehensive programme to create more jobs for the youth, most of who are currently sitting home without gainful employment.

He promised the people that President Mills and his administration would deliver on the numerous promises he made to Ghanaians during the 2008 electioneering campaign. Aside that he, urged the country’s teeming youth to take advantage of the Youth in Agriculture Programme (YAP) to go into gainful employment.

‘The NDC long term objective is to promote and create productive employment opportunities in all sectors of the economy” he said emphasising “our policies on investment and on training are designed to create employment and enable productive ventures to tap the needed manpower.”

It the expectation of the NDC Regional Chairman and his executives to complete their visit to all 27 constituencies in the Greater Accra Region by the middle of September, to enable them have first hand information on the ground.

``… I would not be a proud Gen. Sec. in defeat``

JAK`s hidden meaning
…was it Ohene Ntow?
Posted: The Chronicle | Friday, July 31, 2009



By Charles Takyi-Boadu


Former President John Agyekum Kufuor vented what seemed like deep-seated anger on his party’s General Secretary, Nana Ohene-Ntow, when he spoke at the 3rd Ferdinand Ayim Memorial Lecture in Accra, on Wednesday night.

After making an emotional appeal to the rank and file of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to close their ranks and unite in the interest of the party, Mr. Kufuor expressed grave concern about the manner in which the NPP split its votes in the last elections, as a result of the emergence of independent candidates, and warned, “I would rather be a messenger in a victorious party that has formed a government, than a proud General-Secretary who would lead us into defeat.”

Though it was not clear whether he was referring to the current General-Secretary of the party, it is however believed that he was making an inference to Nana Ohene-Ntow, since according to the ex President, the late Ferdinand Ayim, who intended to contest the position, would have been a better General-Secretary for the party.

However, despite the chilled response from the audience, following this comment, the former President went ahead to say -“Please, I am talking from my heart; we’ve suffered for far too long”.

“So anything that will divide us, please let us approach it very cautiously because we have a historic duty to Ghana and to our tradition and to ourselves as individuals”, he cautioned.

Mr. Kufuor noted that the NPP cannot afford to lose another election since Ghanaians need the party back in government.

According to him, coming back to power in 2012 is not only a possibility, but also a must, and therefore charged the leadership and members of the party to work together to achieve this goal.

“Anything we do that will whittle down our votes, let us keep away from it, we must also keep away from anything that will divide us. We should respect each other, we should have fellow-feeling”, he said.

The programme, which was chaired by Businessman and party stalwart Mr. Kwame Pianim, was attended by key party functionaries including Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Party’s Presidential Candidate in the 2008 elections and NPP former Ministers and Members of Parliament.

Though the party is hungry for power, Kufuor warned the leadership not to use any dubious means to achieve this. According to him, other political parties would even ‘kill’ to win power, but the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition would not beat that path to win power.

He however noted that “we should go to all length and pay all the cost, so that we can get back into power, I believe Ghana needs this tradition.” With the vast knowledge and intelligence available in the NPP, Mr. Kufuor said “nothing legitimate should be too expensive for us.”

Touching on the theme of the occasion, ‘Ghana’s developmental challenges: Perspective on the roles of competence, loyalty and sycophancy’, which was delivered by former Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, the former President said it is not for nothing that the economy of Ghana developed four-fold during his tenure of office as President, attributing the success story of his administration to competence. “We have it, but I am not suggesting that we should be complacent, we are targeting excellence, and for excellence we need to strive and strain to break records.”

In the party’s quest to come back to power, he noted that care must be taken in selecting people to positions of responsibility, since according to him loyalty is an important aspect of politics. He emphasised that “if you are forming a cabinet and you just look to competence, before you know, your act is stolen. NPP will lose its government to strangers, so we should be careful when we are defining loyalty.”

“It took us four to five decades to get into government, but our elders stayed the course, they sacrificed, that’s why I say our path is lighted with martyrdom, our leaders could have become sycophants, could have betrayed the course, but they didn’t do that”, he added.

Mr. Kufuor said the big changes in life all over the world tend to come through sound political leadership, which perhaps is the most critical in the evolution of rapidly developing nations, using the traits of France’s De Gaulle and China’s Lee Kuan Yew as typical examples of good political leadership.

Whilst appreciating the fact that the Dankwa-Busia-Dombo tradition is replete with a long chain of martyrs from the 1950s, the former President was of the belief that a man like the late Ferdinand Ayim deserves the position of ‘Martyr of our time’, and therefore stressed the need to celebrate him every year. He therefore asked those who believe in Ferdinand’s ideas and ideals to use the occasion to deliberate over serious political matters.