Hon. Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah’s Diary: Honouring 23 Easter Invitations In Three Days

Hon. Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, the Member of Parliament for Ho West Constituency’s Easter calendar was choked with overlapping invitations, starting from Easter Saturday through Sunday to Monday. Easter is a Christian celebration that marks the death and resurrection of Christ and is most often packed with activities by associations, youth groups and community leaders to renew their commitment towards attaining their objectives and in most cases to raise funds to support various projects for the betterment of their members and communities. Many of these associations, groups and communities invite influential people to grace their occasions.

The Member of Parliament for Ho West, Hon Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah received about 23 invitations during this year’s Easter festivities. His respect for the people and commitment to serve and treat each person, association, group and community equally is unquestionable as he demonstrated same during this year’s Easter. He formed two teams in the late afternoon of Good Friday to ensure he honours all the invitations he received. One of the teams was led by him and the other led by Mr. Kafui Kwawu (Shaka), the Ho West Constituency Youth Organizer of the National Democratic Congress.

Easter Saturday, March 26, 2016
Hon Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah and his team, made up of eleven other persons including his two Chinese friends from OneGo Ghana Wisdom Limited visited three Avatime towns of Biapka, Vane and Fume. The team also visited Saviefe Agokpor, and Takla in the Ho Central Constituency. The second team visited three Awudome towns of Avenui, Kwanta and Tsito and two Avatime towns of Gbadzeme and Amedzorfe. At Biakpa, Hon Bedzrah joined the chiefs and people to commission a community water project that was started about two years ago which he supported with ten thousand Ghana cedis (GH₵10,000.00) from his Common Fund. The project has the capacity to supply good drinking water to nearly every home at Biakpa. The chairman for the occasion who happened to be the Paramount Chief of Avatime Traditional Area expressed his appreciation to the MP for his continuous support for the people of Avatime and appealed to him to support other Avatime towns in their quest to provide for themselves good drinking water. The MP promised to continue to work hard to ensure life is much comfortable for his constituents by prudently spending his Common Fund on projects that benefit the generality of the people.

The team moved to Vane where the chiefs and people held a fund raising durbar in aid of completing various self-initiated community projects. The MP’s two Chinese friends who are directors of OneGo Ghana Wisdom Limited, a Chinese company operating in the mineral and petroleum exploration sectors in Ghana promised to provide the people of Vane with a mechanized borehole that could be pumped into an overhead tank for distribution to various homes in the town. The chiefs and people of Vane were grateful to the Chinese for the gesture and thanked the MP for bringing them along to the ceremony. The MP also donated two sets of football jersey and two footballs to the youth in his bid to promote a healthy lifestyle and unity among them.

At Saviefe Agokpor, where the MP was part of a durbar to raise funds to support E.P Basic Schools in the town, he underscores the importance of education and promised to continue to work hand-in-hand with other stakeholders to ensure the standard of education in the constituency is largely improved; he made a cash donation to support the durbar’s obectives.

To complete the day, the people of Fume at a brief ceremony held in hounour of the MP presented him with two fowl, food stuffs, two bottles of White Wine, a bottle of Gin and a letter expressing their appreciation to the MP for his support to the community since becoming the Member of Parliament for the constituency in 2007. Hon Bedzrah visibly astonished by the gesture thanked the chiefs and people and reminded them to mobilize themselves as a matter of urgency to start their community water project, saying as soon as they start, he will redeem a promised of five thousand Ghana cedis (GH₵5,000.00) he made to them somewhere last year as part of his contribution towards the provision of good drinking water for the people. He also promised to provide them with the required number of bags of cement for the completion of their community centre. He urged the people to take advantage of the location of the town and the completion of the road from Dzolokpuita to Fume and the soon to be completed Asikumah to Hohoe section of the eastern corridor road to establish businesses that will attract visitors and make the town commercially viable citing Linda Door at Bonsu Junction as an example. The people were thankful to the MP for his wise counsel and promised to work towards commercialization of the town.

Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016
The Dzodzoenyenye Branch of the ARS Church at Dededo was the first stop of the MP and his team. He joined the church to thank God for His mercies upon his life and those of his constituents and to also raise fund to support various projects of the church. The MP used the opportunity to thank the people for their prayers and support during his bid to return to parliament on the ticket of the NDC in the party’s primaries late last year. He asked them to continue to pray for him going into the national elections in November this year. He made a cash donation as part of his contributions to the fund raising ceremony. Other places visited by the MP include Abutia Agorve E.P Church and Kpedze Global Evangelical Presbyterian Church where the MP again made cash donations in support of their fund raising activities and asked the people to take advantage of the resurrection of Christ, the Prince of Peace to forgive and ask for forgiveness from their friends and relations and from God. The congregations were grateful to him for finding time to honour their invitations and pledged their support for his candidature and that of his presidential candidate in the November 7 national elections.

The Shaka led team which was the MP’s second leg represented him at Tsito and Tsibu EP Churches. They delivered the MP’s message of forgiving and seeking for forgiveness to the two congregations and made cash donations on his behalf to the congregations. They used to opportunity to encourage the people, especially parents and those who turned 18 years to take advantage of the Electoral Commission’s limited registration exercise to register as voters and go out to vote massively for the MP and his presidential candidate in the November polls.

Easter Monday, March 28, 2016
Hon. Bedzrah and his team were guests at five picnic celebration grounds including the forgotten Ghanaian village of Hanyigba Todzi - Ghana situated on top of the Akuapim-Togo range. According to the chief of the village, Hon Bedzrah is the only political figure who has visited the village. He lamented that the location of the village makes it very difficult to access but blamed political leaders for refusing to help develop village by providing them with basic amenities. He expressed sadness at how their farm produces go bad because they are unable to transport them to a market center. Hanyigba Todzi - Ghana is about four kilometers through the mountains from Ashanti Kpoeta, a journey which takes more than 3 hours to complete by foot. By car, one needs to travel into Togo, drive through Klo Mayorndi, Wome, Kpalime and Hanyigba Dugah before plying a terrible rough-road through the mountains for over an hour to Todzi - Ghana. The chief appealed to the MP to lobby other stakeholders to ensure basic schools are established for them and electricity connected to the village. He also appealed to him to work to ensure the four kilometer road from Ashanti Kpoeta linking the village is constructed.

In an RC chapel, close to a thousand persons singing and dancing with appellations such as “our Prince of Light”, “the Saviour of Todzi - Ghana”, “our only Hope” among others decorated the MP with a rich hand woven Kente, Beads and a native sandals. They also presented him with fruits and other food stuffs. In his speech, Hon Bedzrah thanked the people for inviting him to their Easter picnic. He said having visited them in the hate of the NDC’s parliamentary primaries in November last year; he became so much concern about their story. He assured them of government’s commitment to ensuring every community benefits from its developmental projects irrespective of the location of the community. He said it is in this spirit that he arranged for the Ho Municipal Director of Non-Formal Education to start literacy class for adults in the community which according to the class instructor has a population of about 200 students. Also, to help alleviate the burden of buying fuel for their lanterns, the MP sent about 200 solar chargeable lanterns worth twenty thousand Ghana cedis (GH₵20,000.00) for free distribution to each household after his first visit to the community late last year. Hon Bedzrah promised to play his role in ensuring basic schools are established to enable children in the community acquire formal education. He donated two sets of football jersey and two footballs to the youth to help foster unity among them.

Earlier in the day, the MP and his team were at a durbar to crown activities of the Easter celebration of the chiefs and people of Abutia where he made a cash donation to support the celebration. He also made a cash donation and two streetlights to the chiefs and people of Dzolo Gbogame to help improve upon security in the community. He used the opportunity to encourage the people to be forgiving and to embrace unity to ensure speedy development of the town. Hon Bedzrah promised to support the chiefs and people of Kpedze with two tons of iron rods to complete a toilet project they started last year which he has already supported with 100 bags of cement. The District Chief Executive of Ho West, Hon Samuel Ewoade joined the MP at Luvudo where they both promised to support the construction a junior high school classroom block initiated by the community with 100 bags of cement each. The MP also donated a set of football jersey and a football to the youth. The MP’s second team was at the inauguration of a private school at the Tsito. They also represented him at a fund raising durbar of the chiefs and people of Akome and Kpoeta Achem where they made cash donations as his support to the people.

Within three days, Hon Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah honoured twenty three (23) invitations. It is a show of a leadership worth trusting, a leadership of care and compassion and a leadership imbedded with “servantship”.