NPP scuttling my endorsement as MCE – Ponkoh

President John Mahama’s nominee for Municipal Chief Executive of Ejisu-Juaben, Afrifa Yamoah Ponkoh, has accused the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) of sabotaging his efforts at getting the approval of assembly members.

Mr Yamoah Ponkoh, who is angling for another shot at the head of the assembly, having served in that capacity earlier, fingered NPP’s Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, for his rejection by the assembly twice.

Speaking to Kwadwo Asare Baffuor Acheampong (KABA) on Asempa FM’s late afternoon show, Ekosii Sen on Tuesday April 12, 2016, Mr Yamoah Ponko, in the wake of a second unsuccessful bid to garner the statutory two-thirds majority of assembly votes to be approved as MCE, said: “It’s some characters within the NPP doing that. It’s not every assembly member here saying that.

He said Chairman Wontumi had met delegates and passionately urged them to vote against his nomination in order not to realise his ambition of becoming MCE. “Let Wontumi prove to the whole world that, for the past three weeks, he’s not held more than 10 meetings here with assembly members,” he dared the NPP regional chairman.

According to Mr Yamoah Ponkoh, the latest interaction between the NPP stalwart and assembly members was at Ejisuman Senior High School on the eve of the vote.

“That’s where Ghana’s politics has got to. This is how far we have gone with NPP-NDC politics, but I pity them,” he lamented.

He said the leading opposition party was doing everything possible to thwart his ascension to the leadership of the assembly because “they are afraid of me”.

“They say: ‘If Yamoah Ponkoh is allowed to return, it will affect our fortunes [as a party].’ That is what they told them,” alleged the former MCE, who himself was a member of the NPP before defecting to the governing NDC in 2009.

“So, when we say the assembly concept is not political, it is not true. If you come to this assembly, of the 47 elected members, 31 are NPP sympathisers.”

When contacted by the host of the show for his reaction, Chairman Wontumi refused to answer to the charge.

Mr Yamoah Ponkoh managed only 38 votes, out of a possible 68, eight shy of the mandatory two-thirds required to head the Ejisu-Juaben Municipal Assembly on Tuesday. The latest setback to his ambition adds to his earlier failure to obtain majority votes back in December 2015, when he was first picked by the president.

This leaves him with one more chance to convince assembly members for their approval, failing which he will be recalled by the president.