Was Woyongo sleeping at cabinet meetings? – George Lawson

The defeated Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central, Mark Owen Woyongo, may have been sleeping at cabinet meetings when he was a minister, hence his comments that he lost the just-ended polls due to the hardships under the Mahama-led administration, George Lawson, a deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said.

Mr Woyongo lost his re-election bid during last week’s presidential and parliamentary polls. He polled 17,203 votes, representing 43.89 per cent of valid votes cast, as against Joseph Kofi Addah’s 20,667, making up 52.72 per cent.

Speaking to journalists after his defeat, the former Interior Minister said the NDC government’s failure to fulfil promises it made to the electorate affected its electoral fortunes and his re-election bid.

“There were some of the policies, national in character, that cost me the election. Increases in electricity tariffs and the general economic hardship aside, the fact is that my party executives did not work well to seal the victory,” he said.

But reacting to these comments in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Thursday December 15, Mr Lawson said: “It is too early to be playing the blame game. At the moment we are in the transition process. After that we will reflect on what happened. We are going to do a post-mortem and find out where we fell short, then reorganise ourselves for the 2020 elections.

“He (Woyongo) is my good friend, but the least said about him the better. He was a cabinet minister and we all know the policies emanated from cabinet, so was he sleeping at cabinet? He should allow ordinary people to make those comments.

“Every policy that the government introduced was discussed at cabinet, and he sat in cabinet while those policies were being discussed. And so he should stop what he is saying and not incite our members as they look forward into the future.”