Minister Ignores President's Orders

Greater Accra Regional Minister, Sheik I.C. Quaye, has ignored the directives of the President to investigate a petition against the conduct of Mr. K.T.K. Agban, Dangbe West Chief Executive.

Rather, he is reportedly executing his own hidden agenda, and intimidating the five signatories to the petition to retract it through the print and electronic media.

The five, all New Patriotic Party (NPP) elders in the Shai-Osodoku constituency, had in a petition dated February 6 confirmed a report of The Heritage (January 15- January 21 edition) that some NPP stalwarts, allegedly acting under the instructions of DCE Agban, had collected ?20,000 from each of the 300 women in Shai-Osudoku who benefited from poverty alleviation loans from the Ministry of Women Affairs.

In the petition to the Local Government Minister and copied to the Chief of Staff, Castle, the Accra Regional Minister and the NPP Regional and National Officers, the petitioners indicated their readiness to substantiate their claims, and urged the Minister to investigate.

Apparently, that is what Sheik Quaye has been mandated to do. However, reports reaching The Heritage from a meeting the Regional Minister Quaye held with the petitioners - Malam Adamu Yushau, Mr. Recon Atta Kwao, Daniel K. Hanson, Ebenezer Obu - on March 10, indicate that he may not be interested if the claims in the petition were true.

Apart from ordering a retraction, the DCE whose alleged conduct is the subject of his investigation, served as secretary during the Minister's meeting with the petitioners.

Adamu told The Heritage in an interview that they were surprised at the Minister's attempt to coerce them into lying to the whole country that the petition they wrote to Government last month was misleading.

Mr. Recon Atta Kwao, one of the signatories to the petition, in an interview expressed surprise at the fact that, Sheik I.C. Quaye instead of investigating the contents of their petition to establish the truth or otherwise, rather has resorted to some tricks to get them to throw dust into the eyes of the public.

"I.C. Quaye was angry that we wrote the petition. He accused us of leaking party information to the media and said the NDC would laugh at us," recalled Mr. Atta Kwao.

Malam Yushau Adamu on his part wondered why a Sheik would lie for political expediency. When asked why the five of them did not protest at the meeting, he said "we realized it was an orchestrated plan to favour the accused DCE, so we kept quiet while the Minister did his own thing," said Malam Adamu.

Continuing, he said, "I was more surprised with the presence of the accused DCE at the meeting, especially when the accused was acting as Secretary to the meeting and taking minutes of the proceedings."

Efforts to get Sheik I.C. Quaye for his comments proved futile, even though The Heritage sources at the Regional Administration confirmed the marathon four-hour meeting held behind closed doors on March 10 between the Regional Minister and DCE Agban on one hand and the five signatories on the other.

Three personal visits to the Minister's office last week were met with the response." He's at a meeting." Telephone calls to his office were also not returned.