TV Star, Ex-MP Dispute Over Responsibility for Car Accident

Sylvia Akua Manfo, the famous advertising agent whose promotion of Royco Shito Mix became a household refrain some two years ago, is up in arms against a former National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP), Kojo Gyapong.

"People should not vote for him, if he comes back; neither should they vote for any NDC member for that matter in 2004 because they lack compassion."

The compassion, which Ms. Manfo charges that Mr. Gyapong lacks, is in connection with an accident which happened on January 6, this year. The ex-Akan (Volta region) MP has a truck, which ran into a saloon car the TV star was driving that day on the Spintex road. A third vehicle driven by another woman also got involved.

Ms. Manfo's car was damaged to the extent that repairs on it were estimated at ?9.84 million. Her six-year old son in the car was traumatized, just as some other relatives of hers in the car sustained various degrees of injuries as a result of the accident.

"He prevailed upon me not to make a police case out of it promising that he would fix my car for me," she says, but regrets that the promise was the last thing she heard from the ex-MP. "Not even calls upon calls, and going to his work place on the Spintex road a dozen times - always missing him - touched the heart of this man to just come and look at my little boy."

As part of the 'deceit', Manfo said, the MP made her submit to his workplace an invoice on the cost of repairs but he still refused to pay anything to support the repairs. Since January, she had become immobile, a condition which, she said, greatly impaired her work as a freelance advertising agent.

Having waited for months without seeing or hearing from Mr. Gyapong, she said she reported to the Tema Circuit Court, Community One B. But the court only dealt with the traffic offence, charged Gyapong's driver for reckless driving and imposed a fine of ?2.5 million on him.

Gyapong also failed to pay the fine and the poor driver was sent in for nine months.

"The ex-MP is such a callous man, not caring what happens even to his own employees on his assignments," the Royco Shito Mix star stressed.

When the ex-MP was contacted, he said, it was rather unfortunate for Ms. Manfo to be going round with the intent to tarnish his image.

He said even though he promised to help repair the car through a verbal 'memorandum of understanding,' Ms. Manfo failed to satisfy her side of the agreement by refusing to allow her insurance company to support her repair the car.

"My brother, I am surprised by the way this lady has been making a lot of allegations and casting insinuations at me, calling me a corrupt ex-NDC MP to the extent of writing a letter to me which contained nothing but insults. Is it because I am ex-NDC MP that is why she is bent on bringing my name into disrepute?" He asked.

Continuing he said, " My brother, my truck had an accident with her car, I was not even in the car but I was told about the accident and the case was reported to the Sakumono police. I asked Ms. Manfo to let us come to an of understanding but she failed to cfall in line, but rather came in with a TV crew to intimidate me.

According to Gyapong, Ms. Manfo later parked her damaged car in front of his working car for 18 days and that the car remained there untill a report was made to the police before she removed it.

He said at the time that she parked the car there, he sent his driver to collect the keys from Ms. Manfo so that he could send the car for repairs but all proved futile. "My car was also damaged and my insurance company is going to repair my car, but I am surprised why she failed to allow her insurance company to take care of her car," he added.

Asked whether he requested for an invoice from the victim, he said, "I only asked the second lady that Ms. Manfo brought to me as another person whose car got damaged as a result of the accident to bring an invoice, but later I decided not to honour my promise because of the conduct of Ms. Manfo," he said.

When Mr. Gyapong was asked again whether or not he now intends considering the plight of the lady, he said since all his efforts had proved futile, he had nothing to offer her.