Mahama's Minister in deadly romance with NPP top-wigs

As many volunteers and groups are springing up including top entertainment personalities to canvass votes to ensure that the President John Mahama led government is retained in power, Hon Alhassan Azong, a Minister of State in-Charge of Public Sector Reforms is dinning and winning with enemies of the government who are vowing to run down the President and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The Minister and Builsa-South Constituency parliamentary candidate on the ticket of the People National Congress (PNC) is alleged to be revealing very sensitive secrets of the government to bigwigs of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) with the promise that the leadership of NPP will also help him to retain his parliamentary seat.

According to credible information reaching this paper, the MP who belongs to a lot of groups created by top government officials to discuss sensitive issues concerning governance and the pending elections have been leaking such information to the largest opposition party that is fixed on winning the general elections at all cost.

He is alleged to be holding various meetings with Mr Gabby Otchere-Darko and Mr Atta Akyea who are all close confidants of the NPP torchbearer on how the NPP could galvanise their supporters in his constituency to vote for him to retain his seat.

According to information, the NPP having agreed to support him retain his seat and also promised him a bigger position should they win the elections, has also demanded that he (Hon Alhassan Azong) should regularly provide them with sensitive and delicate information of the government, both on government policies and strategies concerning the up-coming elections.

It is recalled that the minister recently charged the electorate in the Builsa-South Constituency in the Upper East Region to vote against John Dramani Mahama in the November 7 general elections.

Hon. Azong made the shocking call, after he was confirmed as the 2016 People's National Convention (PNC) parliamentary candidate for the Builsa-South Constituency by the party's executives.

Hon Azong, who is the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, was appointed in 2009 to serve as a Minister in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration – a position he still holds under John Mahama.

However, the NDC, seeking to win the Builsa-South Parliamentary seat, elected presidential staffer Dr. Clement Apaak, who is a cousin to Azong, to contest him. This move by the NDC, according to sources close to the Minister, did not go down well with him, and that he could not understand why the former would stab him in the back when he is a member of its administration.

"This game of politics is scratch my back and I also scratch yours, but I think the NDC has gotten it wrong, and that it will dearly pay for it," Mr. Azong was alleged to have told a confidante shortly after his acceptance speech on that Saturday.

According to him, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) did it for Freddie Blay and Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom when they stood on the tickets of the Convention People's Party (CPP) for the Ellembele and Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem (KEEA) constituencies in the Western and Central regions respectively, during President Kufuor's administration in 2004 when the two served with the then government, which, he said, made the NPP not to contest those seats, but instead, supported them.

Azong, according to the source, observed that if the NPP did it for the two CPP members at that time, "why can't the NDC government, of which I'm a current serving minister, do same for me by throwing its support behind me."

Meanwhile, Azong's call for dropping President Mahama incurred the wrath of some members of the NDC in the constituency, who are calling on the President to, as a matter of urgency, relieve him of his post.

They described the PNC's MP call as "betrayal of the highest order", and appealed to the President not to tolerate such a character in his government. "You can't work at Unilever and expect at the end of the month to be paid by Guinness Ghana Limited. It is never done anywhere. We (NDC) cannot take care of him, for him to go out and campaign against us at the end of the day. Never!" the NDC members said.