Kumasi Mayor to be hauled before PAC

Some Assembly members of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) are contemplating dragging their Chief Executive, Hon. Kojo Bonsu, to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.

The intended move by the assembly member, Today understands, is to compel Mr. Bonsu to explain how he allegedly misappropriated funds belonging to the assembly.

The assembly members who have been part of a pressure group at the assembly fighting to pass a vote of no confidence in the mayor say even though they have failed a number of times, they will not relent in fighting the “corrupt attitude of the mayor.”

At a press conference in Kumasi, the leadership of the group announced their intention to petition PAC or go to the law courts to ‘compel the mayor to account for his dubious contractual deals’ at the assembly.

“As at now, we are still collecting and collating all the relevant facts and figures coupled with supporting documents covering his [Mr. Bonus’s] alleged dubious deals contractually, materially and financially to aid our prosecuting process,” Abraham Boadi, told the journalists.

The group expressed surprise that uncompleted and abandoned projects in the Kumasi Metro Area have been fully paid for, adding that ‘it is about time that this “looting and squandering of KMA coffers were curtailed or stopped entirely.’

As to why their much publicised vote of no confidence in the mayor failed earlier this year, the group alleged that the Metro Coordinating Director, Mr. Solomon Asiedu, who had been previewed to the list of all the aggrieved members, then gave it to the mayor who with the help of his special Assistant, Sammy Gyamfi, allegedly called some of them and induced them.

“They craftily and cunningly persuaded some of our colleagues with attractive inducements in cash and in kind, thus prompting six of our colleagues to abandon the just course they swore to make it happen, at the last hour,” Mr. Boadi known as Opoo man told the journalists.

However, Special Assistant to the Mayor, Sammy Gyamfi, in a telephone conversation with this paper refuted the allegations saying neither the mayor nor himself has induced any of the Assembly Members.

“This is an insult to the intelligence of the six members who withdrew their names from the list of those who were pushing for the vote of no confidence. All the assembly members contested in their respective areas and were duly voted for; hence there should be mutual respect among them.

“…just as they could reason and move for a vote of no confidence in the mayor, so can any of their members also reason and say it is not worth it. How then do you say that they have been compromised, when no one has said you have also been induced to take that action against the mayor?” Sammy Gyamfi argued.

Mr. Bonsu, according to him, respects every assembly member including even those who disagree with him on certain issues but ‘nothing like that ever happened.’