Amerley Tagoe Snubs Medical Students

Lens -- Theresa Amerley Tagoe, the NPP candidate for the Ablekuma South constituency walked out of a forum organised by the students of the Ghana Medical School at Korle Bu for the candidates vying to represent the constituency in parliament to come and tell the students why they should be voted for.

The forum, billed to start at 6.pm could not start on time as the NDC candidate for the area, Nii Adamah Morrison, had not arrived, though the National Youth Organiser of the NDC Haruna Iddrisu had arrived and assured the organisers that Nii Adamah Morrison had been caught up in a similar function in another part of the constituency and he would be joining the forum mid-way, an explanation that the organisers found acceptable.

At about 6.45pm Amerley Tagoe arrived at the function with a busload of supporters in party T-shirts and waving party flags. The NPP supporters that Amerley Tagoe bussed to the function out-numbered the medical students present at the function.

Less than twenty minutes after she arrived, Amerley Tagoe with her supporters left claiming that she was not prepared to address the students if Adamah Morrison was not present. According to her she had come to the function principally because she saw the function as a platform to answer some comments that Adamah Morrison had been making against her in the constituency.

Not even an explanation from the organisers that the platform of the forum was not for the candidates to come and settle personal scores, but for the candidates to sell themselves to the students of the Medical school, who are also part of their constituents could make Amerley Tagoe rescind her decision to leave.

The organisers sought to impress on Amerley Tagoe that the absence of Nii Adamah Morrison should not prevent the students from knowing and hearing from their other candidates, and that Amerley Tagoe should cease the opportunity to sell herself and her message to the students, but with her supporters pushing and heckling the organisers, Amerley Tagoe walked out of the function, implying that she was not there to canvass the students for their votes but rather to use the platform of this country to settle personal scores.

Some twenty minutes or thereabouts after Amerley Tagoe left, Nii Adamah Morrison arrived together with his driver and secretary. He lapped the opportunity to sell himself and his party to the students. He outlined his vision for his constituents, which he said include establishing a free medical advice consultancy for his constituents. He spoke about efforts he is making to alleviate some of the social difficulties facing the people of Glefe, Opetekwei and similar areas of his constituency, which he described as "urban rural."

He acknowledged that what he is doing now may not be sustainable, but that is why he is seeking to be in parliament, so that he could exert greater influence on the development of his constituency.

Haruna Iddrisu used the occasion to explain why the NDC is proposing a Health Fund, saying, "the Health Fund to be implemented by the NDC will not be for the purpose of merely raising seed capital for National Health Insurance, but it would operate along the lines of the GETFund to become the source of funding of the health sector development."

Haruna debunked the claim of the NPP that they are respecters of the rule of law, "They claim that they respect the rule of law, what kind of rule of law? The law establishing the GETFund requires the government to make payments into the Fund at specific times. They have violated that law by defaulting making payments into the Fund, resulting in a huge arrears, only for them to unilaterally declared that they would pay the arrears over a five year period. If you respect the law, you don't vary the law to suit you, you obey the law," Haruna noted.

He debunked suggestions that the NDC was making political capital of the death of the Ya-Na, "am I the one who asked the President to say he was not going to Yendi? When the President makes these statements and nobody says anything and we come back to counter it then you hear suggestions that the NDC was politicising the matter," Haruna observed.

He called on the students to reject the NPP at the polls and return the NDC to power to enable the NDC continue with its human-centred policies