John Boadu slams Carlos Ahenkorah for roaming registration centres

General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) John Boadu has described as unfortunate the inspection visit by Member of Parliament (MP) for Tema West Constituency to some voter registration centres when he knew he had tested positive for coronavirus.

JB, as NPP’s scribe is affectionately called, said that was “wrong” and Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, who is also a Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, should do the needful by self-isolating immediately.

Mr Ahenkorah had earlier tested positive for coronavirus but had broken isolation.

At the start of the voter registration exercise on Tuesday, June 30, for instance, the Tema West MP was spotted at some centres in his constituency.

In interviews he granted to some radio stations on Thursday, July 2, Mr Ahenkorah said he had gone out of isolation because he was asymptomatic.

In a statement issued on Thursday, he denied reports making rounds that he was at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Korle Teaching Hospital, though admitting that he had been to the hospital for an overnight review of his Covid-19 situation.

He also admitted in the separate radio interviews that he was at the bedside of the Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, on Wednesday, July 1, when he died.

Speaking on Hot Issues on TV3 on Thursday, John Boadu lashed out Mr Ahenkorah for even granting interviews on radio stations when he should be self-isolating.

“I don’t know which doctor advised that even when he has been discharged from the hospital he can still go around observing [the ongoing registration exercise] in the midst of a lot of people.

“I think that it is wrong,” the former National Organiser of the NPP said.

“For us as a party we are advising him that it is unfortunate, it is improper for him to go round monitoring the registration exercise.

“I think leadership should show by example,” he said, citing how some ministers of state have gone into self-isolation after testing positive for the virus.

There have been calls for the head of the Deputy Minister but that, Mr Boadu said, is “overstretched”.

“What all of us are saying is that since he has tested positive, it will be better and appropriate on his part to self-isolate.

“If you say he has broken a certain law, I doubt,” he told host Johnnie Hughes.