Sissala West DCE Incurs Wrath Of NPP Executives

Allegations of nepotism and favouritism levelled against the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Sissala West, Mr. Mohammed Zackaria Bakor, has heightened tension in the district, especially among the New Patriotic Party (NPP) executives.

The members of the executive committee of the party are, therefore, calling on the leadership of the party at the regional and national levels, as well as the Regional Minister and all well-meaning party stalwarts to intervene to bring the Member of Parliament (MP) to focus on his core social responsibilities to the constituency.

The visibly-worried executive committee is also calling on the appointing authority and national executive committee to, as a matter of urgency, relieve the Mr. Mohammed Zackaria Bakor, of his position to pave way for peace and the development of the party.

This, to them, would help to consolidate the gains made in the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections in the constituency.

Addressing a news conference at Gwollu over the weekend, Rufia Zini, a member of the executive committee, on behalf of his colleagues, said the DCE, Mohammed Zackaria, is the biggest beneficiary of the NPP 2016 general elections victory.

Rufia continued that the DCE threw caution to the winds, and without any engagement with the constituency party executives, unilaterally awarded to himself and his immediate family members contracts for the cooking of food in 14 schools out of a total of 53, under the School Feeding Programme in the district.

He said: “The DCE's two wives were each awarded with two populated schools as their share of their husband's allocated contracts.”

In what they termed as “skewed distribution of the school feeding contracts,” they said the development had led to a growing syndrome of despondency among the rank and file of the party. This, they continued, has negative consequences for both the growth of NPP and its fortunes on future elections in the constituency.

Mr. Zini indicated that the DCE had become a security threat, creating fear and panic, especially among party executives in the constituency. “He has gained notoriety for consistently threatening law abiding party executives who work within our district. As part of his modus operandi, he consistently threatened to transfer executives who double as employees of government institutions,” they said.

According to them, in one of the instances, the DCE personally visited a polling station secretary's father at Kusali and threatened that “if anything happens to your son, do not blame me (DCE).” This, according to them, is unfortunate because the DCE is rather supposed to protect the people and not to threaten them.

According to Rufia Zini and his colleague party executives, party growth and development is a process and not an event, but the DCE and MP's attitudes towards the party's growth and image-building are very disappointing.

He said: “With this abundant evidence, the DCE has not found it necessary to engage the party structures in the constituency. It is common knowledge that our DCE and MP do not patronise social functions in the district. Besides, they are the least worried whether our great party is represented in such events or not.”

To them, this apparent lack of interest in social events such as funerals of prominent persons, which is at variance with the culture and values of the people, was working against the image of the party and the government.

The 383 polling stations and constituency executives are also not happy that the only party vehicle in good condition has been given to one Majeed (who is not a party officer) by the MP, in connivance with the DCE.

As if that is not enough, the MP followed up with a phone call to the Constituency Chairman, warning him not to go near the vehicle, else he (Constituency Chairman) risked being locked up.

“These actions, and many others that cannot be conveyed through this medium, are calculated steps to undermine the efforts of the hardworking party executives and stakeholders who worked tirelessly to win the Sissala West seat for the first time in the history of our party,” the executives said.

In a sharp rebuttal to issues raised by Zani and his team, Huhu Musah, spokesman for both the MP and DCE rubbished the claims, saying before Mohammed Bakor became a DCE, he was a teacher and businessman, who supplied fertiliser to farmers. His two wives too were gainfully employed.

Defending the DCE, he noted it was a big disgrace for the constituency executives to forget all their (MP, DCE) hard work. He mentioned the building of teachers' quarters at Buoti, Nyimati, Kuntulu and lights to Bullu TQ, building a 6-unit classroom block at Liman Senior High School (SHS), completion of nurse's bungalow, ongoing child and mother care unit with a 40-bed capacity, police post at ZINI, and CHPS Compound ongoing at Bullu as some of the projects being implemented by the DCE.