NDC bribes Amenfi West over by-election

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a desperate attempt to win the Amenfi West parliamentary seat in the Western Region in a by-election slated for December 15, 2015, is purportedly employing unconventional tactics to outwit its opponents.

The by-election would be held in accordance with Article 112 (5) of the Constitution, following the sudden death of the NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, John Gyetuah, on October 13, 2015.

Various political parties are earnestly campaigning in the area with the hope of clinching victory.

They include the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which has Paul Dekyi, a legal practitioner, as its candidate; the NDC, which candidate is Eric Afful and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), with Abraham Kojo Boadi as its candidate.

According to some political pundits, the by-election would be used to assess the popularity of the ruling party, which is reported to have neglected the constituency for a long time.

According to a section of the residents who spoke to DAILY GUIDE, government had begun work on some roads in the community after an announcement by the Electoral Commission that it was going to organize the by-election in the area.

They indicated that graders with the posters of the NDC candidate (Eric Afful), posted on them were seen busily working on roads linking communities in the constituency.

The people alleged that apart from the last-minute projects being undertaken, the constituents are being induced with money and other materials by some activists of the ruling party for their votes.

In spite of the said inducements, the chief scribe of the NPP, Kwabena Agyei Agyepong – who is leading the party to campaign in the area for its candidate, maintained that the NDC would lose the seat to the NPP. He noted that the level of underdevelopment in the area was unprecedented, despite the fact that the NDC had occupied the seat from the past 12 years.

Speaking on Royal 89.3 Fm at Amenfi West, Mr Agyepong indicated that the NPP was leaving nothing to chance and would appeal to the conscience of people not to allow the last-minute projects and material things to influence them into making a wrong decision.

“Traveling on some of the roads to some of the communities since I arrived was a hell. At a point we had to get down from our vehicles to push the cars before we were able to make the journeys,” Mr Agyepong said.

He told the people in the area – many of who are from the Northern Region and are farming there – that the NPP is not an Akan party as it’s always pontificated by some elements of the NDC.

“We don’t have to do tribal politics, but let me explain that it was the erstwhile Northern People’s Party that gave birth to the current NPP with majority of its founding members being from the northern region,” he told the listeners.

One of the constituency’s communication directors of the NPP, Abew Yaw, also asserted that the constituents were wild awake and knew that the road construction was being undertaken because of the by-election.

He indicated that the NPP’s national women’s organizer, Otiko Djaba, was in the area and that the party’s acting chairman, Freddie Blay, would soon storm the constituency.