<<Print>>

The newly election regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Greater Accra Region, Hon. Ishmael Ashitey, is alleged to have received money from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to help finance his campaign. This allegation came to the fore during an exclusive interview with a high ranking member of the NPP at the weekend. The member, who pleaded anonymity and also contested an executive position in the just-ended Greater Accra regional elections of the NPP, alleges that Hon. Ashitey was heavily funded by the NDC through a clearing agent based in Tema. The member also mentioned that Mr Ashitey was funded by former President Kufuor and Mr Alan Kyerematen. Asked whether he was alleging some sort of conspiracy between former President Kufuor, Alan, and the NDC, the aggrieved member declined to comment. Hon. Ashitey could not be reached for his version try as the New Punch did yesterday. Independent checks by the New Punch also indicated that Ishmael Ashitey�s war chest was thickly oiled by the Kufuor-Alan divide in the party. NDC stalwarts who were contacted to confirm or deny the allegations, only sniffed, scoffed and snide at it saying why should we waste our money on an NPP congress when we�ve our own congress to contend with from January 15 to 17 this month? In any case we know that whichever party takes the majority seats in Greater Accra in the 2012 general elections will form the next government, and we don�t expect the NPP or for that matter any of the candidates originally billed to contest the Greater Accra Regional chairmanship of the NPP to give us any problems, the NDC stalwart said. Other senior party members that the Punch newspaper spoke to condemned the source of these allegations. According to most of the party officials, these allegations are unfounded and are motivated by vendetta against Mr Ashitey. �This is shameful. The man has genuinely won an election. Instead of joining hands with the winner to unite the party and prepare for 2012, look at the shameful stories they are putting out to discredit and malign the man,� they said. The final results of the Greater Accra Chairmanship race were as follows: Mr Ayikoi Otoo 27 Mr Adjei Boi 22 Mr Isaac Amoo 82 Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe 58 Hon. Ishmael Ashitey 245 According to the aggrieved member, Hon. Ashitey had a huge financial pot at his disposal, which he is certain to have come from the NDC. According to him, Hon. Ashitey gave away TV sets, cash, and cloth, bags of rice and sugar and cooking oil. Each delegate was also the recipient of GH�500.00. Hon Ashitey reportedly called all constituency executives to his house to be feted to a lunch at his Tema residence. After the lunch, each person left with GH�200.00. About three days prior to the election, he is reported to have called the whole 25 constituencies together and distributed to them bags of rice, sugar, and cloth to individual members of each constituency. In addition, sources close to the Punch newspaper say Mr Ashitey personally handed out to each person a cash package of GH�500,00. Investigation gathered that right at the voting hall at the Ghana Trade Fair Centre money was distributed openly to influence voting. It is believed that even the TESCON students who were to be used to help organise the regional conference, were also bought. Lamenting over this, �these kids are the future of the party and if we are going to corrupt them with money at this stage, aren�t we destroying the future of the party. Few people reporters spoke to said what they witnessed was so disgusting and painful.