Dan Botwe – I sacrificed my job for NPP

One of the youthful aspiring Presidential candidates of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and a former Minister of Information, Dan Kweku Botwe has brushed aside persistent rumours that he is going into an alliance with one of the candidates.

He said that the delegates who were in Legon know that he is a straight forward person and when he told them to vote for Mac Manu and the late Hawa Yakubu publicly he knew his job was on the line and yet he did that for the party which abhors imposition from any quarters.

“I have confirmed that I would take part in the contest and I am not working for anybody as people are saying. I have also explained the values and the reason why I am in the contest to the delegates and they in turn know it".

Addressing the press at Takoradi last Saturday after touring the twenty-two constituencies in the Western Region, Mr. Botwe continued that “I am a straightforward person and if I would support somebody I would have done that long ago," adding he was the only man among the Ministers who openly came out to throw his weight in the process behind the late Madam Hawa Yakubu and Mr. Peter Mac Manu and urged the party delegates to vote for the two during the party congress to elect a chairman and other positions in the party last two years.

Therefore he would not hide his feelings of the reason he was in the race, to get executive power, in order to achieve his burning desire to effectively and efficiently render service to the country.

"I desire to get things done, inspiring and motivating my people and I believe it is what I have injected into the party as then General Secretary".

Dan Botwe told the press however that when he was given the executive powers to lead the country, he would focus on four areas of the economy, agriculture, health, education and security adding he would expect closer cooperation with the heads of the above mentioned sectors in that there would be real action in the four disciplines he had chosen.

Meanwhile The Chronicle says Dan Botwe has told the press that he feels uncomfortable talking about why he was pushed out as the Minister of Information and that President John Agyekum Kufuor might know the reason as to why he booted him out during Kufuor's last reshuffling exercise.

In his own words, "The reason is not for me to answer because I did not take the decision."

According to him, within the one year he had stayed as the sector Minister of Information, he had achieved a lot and Ghanaians were the right persons to judge his performance at the Ministry.

He mentioned how within his short term he was able to negotiate to acquire vehicles for the Information Service in every District, pushed Ghana Institute of Journalism then under Ghana Education Service to Ministry of Education and the Press briefings as well as the Peoples Assembly concept he introduced.

On the Peoples' Assembly, Dan said “if I had not left, the Assembly was going to be held every six months and not yearly".

All these according to him were positive things he had done within his short stay as the head of the ministry. However, Dan Botwe who is also the Chairman of the Strategic Research Committee of the NPP party disclosed to the press that he would be giving up the position very soon on the grounds that the constitution of the party mandated him to be a member of the vetting committee that would vet the aspiring presidential candidates of the party, and having him as an aspiring candidate makes the position incongruous.

Credit: The Chronicle