Murder attempt on MP

The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tema East constituency of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ishmael Ashietey, has announced attempts by certain officials within the constituency of the party to kill him.

Subsequently, the chairman of the Tema East constituency and his secretary, Obeng Fosu and Charles Boateng respectively, has been suspended from their positions.

Mr Ashietey told the Network Herald yesterday, that the secretary allegedly paid thugs in the metropolis to disrupt work at the constituency office and attack him.

He named one Atsu and Eyadema as leaders of the tugs and alleged further that the constituency secretary, Charles Boateng, organized the thugs based on suspicion that he, the MP, had instigated certain polling agents to sign documents that would frame him up and lead to him losing his position.

Mr Ashietey said the two hired thugs confessed to him the day after receiving the contract and even tendered the ransom money in evidence.

But the law making Tema East MP had not made any report to the police when the Network Herald checked.

He said, based on all those allegations, the emergency meeting of the constituency executive voted by 8votes against 2, to suspend the two but was not sure the chairman was part of the plot.

A source at the said meeting informed the newspaper that the meeting with the MP was part of the routine to redeem the badly bruised the image of the NPP in Tema and was used to iron out the sources of tension within the party.

The former Minister for Fisheries said the chairman and secretary were suspended after a thorough examination of a catalogue of charges that had been leveled against them including the organization of thugs “to attack and possibly kill me, but I had to take cover else I would have been dead by now.”

They were further charged for continuously disrupting any meeting that was called to discuss the progress of the party in the constituency.

Not only that; the two were also accused of closing the party office at Tema Community One with support from their supporters for about two weeks, without stating any reasons. That action, the MP said, deprived party members the opportunity of entering the premises for any transaction.

When referred to Article 10 of the party’s constitution which empowers functionaries to discipline any member whose conduct brought the name of the party into disrepute, the party source concede though, that the affected officers were yet to be written to.

But he said as a constituency that sought to build a formidable front that would enable them maintain the seat and presidential mandate at the 2008 poll, they took exception to the fact that the affected officials ignored the party’s constitution to seek redress for grievances and rather petitioned the leadership of the party in Accra instead of first contacting the constituency executives.

“Our party is getting bad every day, the party is dying,” he regretted, and urged them to endeavour to redeem the pathetic image it had acquired by uniting with one another and stepping up campaign strategies to draw more people into their folds.

The chairman and secretary were described by the meeting as incompetent and inefficient persons who could not even convene and supervise meetings during their tenure of office. They only found faults with everyone and everything.