DCE, MP Cited for Vote Buying

for impending NPP primaries

EXECUTIVES OF the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Bosome Freho constituency have accused the District Chief Executive, Mr. Richard Aboagye and the sitting Member of Parliament, Mr. G.Y. Amoah of vote buying.

The executives have alleged moves by the DCE to corrupt the Electoral College in the constituency to the advantage of the MP. The complainants are the First Vice Chairman, E.O. Aboagye, Youth Organizer, Oduro Karikari and the Secretary, Amponsah Kwakye.

Others are Organizer Sylvernus Agyapong, Ashah Agyekum, Women's Organizer, Kwabena Asare Baffour, Assistant Secretary and Matthew Adjei, the Financial Secretary.

DCE Aboagye, also accused of functioning as the Campaign Manager for the MP, is said to have promised polling station chairmen ?1 million.

He reportedly has promised them ?100,000 now, assuring to pay a further ?1 million to each of them after the primaries. The move is allegedly meant to influence them to forgive the MP for any previous wrong doing and retain him for a third term in Parliament.

The constituency executives are angered by the fact that the DCE is using Assembly resources (fuel and vehicle and other logistics) in this diabolic move.

But the DCE has refuted the allegations: "I am not the Campaign Manager for the MP, neither have I promised polling station chairmen any monies" he told The Chronicle in a telephone conversation.

According to him, there was no way he could pay ?1 million to each of the over 300 polling stations in all the four zones under the three constituencies in his district.

Aboagye said the nearest he had gone to polling station chairmen was when he joined them at Awisa to discuss the processes to the primaries.

The aggrieved executives have also complained about the conduct of the constituency chairman, Mr. Yaw Amoah Gyami, who is said to have threatened to sack all party executives involved in the mass cocoa spraying exercise if they did not vote for the MP at the impending primaries.

The aggrieved executives said Chairman Gyami had refused to pay them their remuneration for the recent registration exercise.

Last April, the executives collectively decided to pass a vote of no confidence in the constituency chairman for his refusal to account for his stewardship since 2001.

In a petition jointly signed and copied to the Regional Secretariat of the party, their chairman was disrespectful.

They called for an embargo on the bank accounts of the NPP in the constituency to prevent the chairman from misusing party finances.