Afram Plains Chiefs Reject NDC

SOME ANGRY chiefs and people of Afram Plains in the Eastern Region – a stronghold of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) – have vowed not to vote for the party in the 2016 general elections.

Their reason is that the government has abandoned the area with regard to infrastructural development.

According to the chiefs, opinion leaders and randomly selected residents of the area, they lack infrastructure, safe drinking water, school buildings, electricity, markets, health centres and hospitals, and have therefore made up their minds to effect a change on the political landscape in 2016.

They expressed their grievances when Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), embarked on a two-day campaign tour of the Afram Plains North and South constituencies last week.

The chief of Akyi-Amanfrom, Nana Yaw Osei hinted, 'From 1992 till now, we have been voting for the NDC. But it has neglected this area. So I will organize a meeting before the 2016 elections and tell the people not to vote for the NDC anymore because they have fooled us for a long time.'

He bemoaned further, 'There is no borehole on the entire islands. Because of Rawlings, we have been voting for the NDC. But this time we will not vote for the party again. Though we don’t like the NPP, that party built our primary school under DCE Anokye.'

Scores of the fishermen, traders, taxi drivers and farmers at Akyi-Amanfrom, expressing their grievances at a public forum, corroborated what Nana Osei had said.

At Sememhyia, the chiefs claimed that the community needed a good road from Tease to Donkorkrom and other areas. Cattle market, pipe-borne water and a hospital – instead of the existing clinic - were also needed.

Nana Oduro Mireku of Mame Krobo said the NDC government had made a number of promises in the area but failed to redeem them. Some projects, Nana pointed out, had even been abandoned, threatening that although the people had been voting for the NDC, they were going to change their minds.

The deprived communities which constitute the so-called Dwarf Islands on the Volta River and nearby settlements like Bruben, Simonkope, Havekope, Tublukope, Galilia, Nyakuikpe, Kpatalidzakope, Kpatsakope-Gemeni, Senafukope and Cedikope, have been abandoned with no projects to be proud of.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia assured the people that the Afram Plains will never be abandoned in terms of development, if the NPP wins the 2016 elections; and appealed to the electorate to vote the party back into power to continue with the developmental projects it embarked on at the area.

Dr. Bawumia was accompanied by Sheikh B.B. Damba, a former vice chairperson of the party; William Hor, Afram Plains South parliamentary candidate, among other bigwigs of the party.

FROM Daniel Bampoe, Tease
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