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The Member of Parliament for Akim Oda constituency Alexander Akwasi Acquah, has successfully gone through vetting and has been considered the surest best for the party in that constituency.

He is due to contest unopposed following some hitches suffered by the only challenger at the vetting.

Mr Akwesi Acquah highlighted his significant leadership and contributions before, during, and after the 2020 General Election.

He was elected MP for the area in 2020 parliamentary election.

He secured 25,380, 79.45% percent to beating the NDC’s Jones Asante who managed some 6,262, 19.60%
Throughout the campaign period, he remained steadfastly involved, tirelessly moving from house to house to campaign and offering substantial resources.

Speaking to the majority of supporters and delegates, they indicated that they have confidence in Mr. Alexander Akwasi Acquah and are ready to vote for him again to lead the party in the constituency.

On his part, the Eastern Regional Chairman for the New Patriotic Party Mr. jeff kunadu said, Dennis Obeng Agyei who is contesting the incumbent MP has been referred to the Akim Oda constituency disciplinary committee due to some infractions that borders on constitutional discipline in the party.

That notwithstanding, there were petition coming from the constituency that we saw evidence of him on radio insighting market women and people against the party.

Dennis Obeng Agyei who is vying for the Akim Oda parliamentary seat admitted and apologize to the party due to that his vetting was unsuccessful. ‘He said’.

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The Member of Parliament for Kade constituency, Alex Kwadwo Agyare has affirmed that the Kade constituency has really benefited from several infrastructure developments especially with roads and other projects under his tenure and the administration of President Akufo-Addo.

He explained that, several roads in the constituency were left in a very bad state until he was voted for as an MP and since then, several streets within Kade constituency, Asuom-Abaamu road, James town road and others have now been constructed with asphalt.

The MP disclosed this on Tuesday, December 26, 2023 when he was submitting his nomination forms with the hope of being retained as the Parliamentary candidate by delegates of the New Patriotic Party for the constituency.

The lawmaker used the opportunity to advise his people not to allow themselves to be deceived by people who also have same ambition to contest for the position as PC with false and unachieved promises only to get their votes.

Hon Alex Kwadwo Agyare urged the delegates to vote for him to become the Parliamentary candidate for the NPP in order to retain the seat for the party in the 2024 general elections for more developments in the constituency.

Some constituency executives and delegates who threw their support behind Mr Alex Kwadwo Agyare in an interview with the media justified their support for the MP, especially on how he has been able to address the unemployment challenges among the youths in the constituency.

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The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency, Lydia Seyram Alhassan has declared that another defeat beckons the parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress, John Dumelo in the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections as she files her nominations form on Christmas Day.

Maa Lydia as she is affectionately called by her constituents filed to recontest New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries for the party ticket in her quest to retain the seat.

She was mobbed by hundreds of party delegates, sympathizers and residents of the constituency as she maneuvers her way through the crowd to the party office at Dzorwulu to file her form.

The Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency Secretary of the NPP, Alhaji Seidu Issah Sawadogo received the forms
Addressing the crowd after the successful filling of the nomination form and a procession along some principal streets of Dzorwulu, Hon Lydia Alhassan expressed gratitude to her constituents for acknowledging her efforts and supporting to represent them once again.

“First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my constituents because they are all appreciative of the good work that I am doing and that I have done so far, so for that reason they think and they will never allow any other person to come in now but for me to continue what I am doing”, She said.

The confident looking Maa Lydia who is also the First Deputy Majority Whip in Ghana’s Parliament believes the party delegates will give her an overwhelming endorsement on January 27, 2024 at the primaries to enable her continue her good works as the general elections draws closer.

The Ayawaso West Wuogon lawmaker outlined numerous projects executed by her and those lobbied for by her outfit for the constituency in the areas of education, health, sports infrastructure, road networks among others as the basis for her believe.

She indicated that despite the challenge of securing land for projects in the area, some successes have been achieved.
These include the first ever SHS and other educational facilities, the completed Abelenkpe AstroTurf and those under construction as well as the several road projects she championed by her.

“As you are aware, for the first time in the history of this constituency the issue of land is scarce so putting up a new educational facility such as SHS is very difficult but by the grace of God come March we are commissioning the first SHS in this constituency.

“We have put up a hospital, we have added more schools, as for roads it is all over. There are astroturfs and more. For this reason, the constituents thought it wise for me to continue what I am doing…I will continue being their humble servant”, Hon Lydia stated.

Hon Lydia Seyram Alhassan is also involved in several philanthropic gestures to all manner of people including students, market women within and outside the constituency.

She recently organized free driving lesson to thousands of students of the University of Ghana where she regularly visits and distributes food and other items to the students at her own expense.

The Ayawaso West Wuogon MP first entered parliament through a bye-election in 2019 following the death of Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko.

She won the 2020 parliamentary election against John Setor Dumelo of the NDC.

Hon Alhassan is optimistic that the January 27, 2024 NPP primary contest with a former constituency youth organiser, Samuel Owusu Amankwah is a mere formality to pave the way for her to give the NDC’s John Dumelo a showdown on December 7, 2024.

The MP was accompanied by constituency executives who bought the form for her lead by its chairman, Alhaji Osman Iddrisu and all 11 Area Coordinators.

Others include the NPP Greater Accra Regional Womens Organiser, Grace Acheampong, MCE for Ayawaso West Municipality, Sandra Ahenkora Owusu and a former Constituency Chairman, John Twumasi.

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One major concern for political watchers with regards to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament is whether we will ever get to a point of electing its lawmakers.

This, a member of the 5th Parliament, Hon Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah said requires strong leadership and political will to achieve.

According to him if there is a strong leadership and political will the election of ECOWAS MPs will be achieved and blames the current leadership for not doing much to actualize this important feat.

He asserts that the current Speaker Rt. Hon Sidie Mohammed Tunis came with the drive to have direct elections to the Community Parliament actualized; unfortunately that drive fizzled down.

“I do not know what happened and why he could not push for this agenda or whether the Authority of Heads of States and Government decided not to accept his proposal or is from him personally or from us as MPs from the ECOWAS Parliament. It has not happened. Whoever is taking over in the 6th legislature that is the next Parliament, should be able to drive this agenda home and should be one of the priority areas for that person to leave a legacy that during my tenure in office I was able to get members elected into that Parliament.”

“We are progressing, we cannot continue retrogressing, look at the number of countries who are no longer part of the ECOWAS parliament; if you add Niger it is going to be four. Look at Guinea Bissau the president has suspended the parliament”.

Thus, instead of fifteen member states, we are eleven. Where are we going with this? this shows there is something wrong with us as a people in the sub-region, he stated.

He indicated that he is reinforcing the crusade to get MPs from ECOWAS Parliament to be elected. “And as one of the MPs, I have been saying if we cannot do it now parliament can elect people who would be permanently of the Community parliament.”

Mr Bedzra also stated that it is difficult to belong to two parliaments and be effective. “If we have MPs who have been elected from their parliaments as we have in East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA), even if there is a coup the MPs could continue but now we are nominees from our various national Assemblies.

So if your national assembly has been suspended or there is a coup, you cannot have same members from the National Assembly serving in the community parliament.

Those of us who are democrats, we want MPs to the Community Parliament elected. It means your national assembly could nominate people and vote on them, so that they can be part of the Community Parliament, so they are there not belonging to your national assembly, he emphasized.

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Ranking Member on the Mines and Energy Committee of Ghana’s Parliament John Abdulai Jinapor has called for the immediate suspension of a ten year contract agreement between the Finance Ministry and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) for revenue assurance services.

According to the Yiepe/Kusawgu lawmaker the contract is fraudulent which further burden the taxpayer and enrich the pocket of greedy politicians who are leading in signing this contract.

In an interview he commended the media for their investigation and added that the Minority has discussed this topical issue and would be moving processes in Parliament to ensure full scale investigation because they do not believe there is value for money.

He further explained that just some few weeks ago Parliament’s Committee on Mines and Energy visited NPA and they were made aware that enough systems have been put in place to ensure all revenue are safe guarded and that they have even hooked up with the Ghana Reven Authority to ensure those assurances are taken care of.

Again it tun up that the three billion savings was not true, we cannot allow the tax payers to be burden with such not necessary contracts.

Meanwhile on Ghana’s foreign component of debt, government is struggling, and government was forced to pay twelve billion in interest payment in the budget as at January to August 2023. As we speak they have paid only four billion all because government has suspended the payment of some category of our debt; “so when you see budget deficits are improving, it is not because we have done anything good but we have suspended payment.

And that has a long way to affect the negotiation. I am not surprised that the IMF negotiation is stalling”, he stated.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Vice Chairperson on Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament who doubles as MP for Mfantseman constituency, Ophelia Mensah Hayford has revealed that, based on their committee’s report Ghana is losing more trained Air Force pilots after investing huge sums of money to train them.

She explained that, Ghana as a country do not have enough fighter jets, helicopters, and other gadgets that are needed in fighting terriorism or for maximum protection of our airspace, and because of that, many trained pilots are not getting regular flight time during their duty hours and therefore decide to leave the institution.

The vice chairman further explained that, because per international practice, an experience of a pilot is measured on how regular or hours he or she has been flying the plane, most of these trained pilots are refusing to remain idle in the service and therefore prefer to leave to seek for employment elsewhere in order to enrich their working experience as pilots.

The lawmaker used the opportunity to call on government to make more funds available for the Defence Ministry to aquire more of their equipment so as to maximize the protection, security and Peace of Ghana, especially during this era where terriorist and other groups disrupt the peace of some countries within the sub-region.

Madam Ophelia Mensah Hayford made these known when she seconded the motion for the approval of Three billion, Eight Hundred and Ninety One Million, One Hundred and Fifty One Thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty Six Cedi
( Gh 3,891,151,856.00 ) for the ministry of Defence for the year ending 31 December, 2024 in Parliament.

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The deputy chairman on the finance committee and MP for Okaikwei Central, Patrick Yaw Boamah has disclosed that government is in the process to secure an amount of $380 million Dollars for the rehabilitation and expansion, a minimum of ten lanes ( 10 lanes ) on the ACCRA-TEMA-MOTORWAY which is about 19.5 kilometres.

According to him the amount is to cover a total of 27.7 kilometres, meaning government is going to use part of the loan to work on Tetteh Quashie interchange, the construction of Teshie link interchange, construction of community 18 interchange, construction of Lashie-bi intercourse and eight toll booths, construction of ten new footbridges among others.

Mr Boamah further said, part of the loan would also be used to complete some works on the George Walker Bush highway (N-1) which is about 5.7 kilometres.

He concluded by saying, this loan would also be used for the rehabilitation of existing six lane on on the Accra-Nsawam Road and other works on that road.

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Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful said government of Ghana has no plans of selling its thirty percent (30 %) shareholding in the Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited.

And further explained that Vodafone Ghana rather has transferred its seventy percent (70 %) stake in the company to the Telcel Group in February 2023.

The Minister made these comments on Monday, December 11, 2023 when the member of Parliament for South Dayi, Mr Rockson Nelson Etse Dafiamekpor asked the minister if government has any plans of selling its shares in Vodafone Ghana.

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Ranking member on the Committee of Trade and Industry, Yusif Sulemana has said as a Country we need to think of how to strengthen the cedi as the Trade and Industry Minister K. T. Hammond is seeking to lay a Legislative Instrument to restrict some imported items which is costly to the country as foreign currency is needed in this regard.

A joint business consultative forum of Ghana has petitioned Parliament’s Trade and Industry Committee as the sector seeks to lay a Legislative Instrument to restrict importation of twenty-two items.

According to him their Committee has received five petitions from those who are affected by these proposed L I and they are looking out for them to engage them for further clarification; “thanks be to God you have offered that opportunity, I have gone through the five petition very well.”

He expressed delight that the House was able to do due diligence, identify the county’s limitations and offered the need inputs. “We have done our bit, it would have gone through by just laying it, but the House unanimously raised critical issues and it was not laid.”

He said it was obvious that the Minister was not happy subsequent attempts to lay the L.I. both failed; “you saw him on television he was not happy when he was not allowed same for the third time.”

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The deputy majority leader and MP for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo Markin has refuted claims by some NDC members in his constituency that some government officials and himself have sold the sacred forest of Effutu to a mining company to mine lithium.

According to him the forest is still reserved for the purpose it is intended for and that there is no plan to sell or lease such land for mining purposes since those claims are mere allegations and propaganda by some NDC members just to score a political point.

He concluded that, the CEO of the Minerals Commission, Mr Martin Ayisi has issued a release to that effect, that such forest has not been sold or given to any company for mining purposes.

He called out his colleagues in the NDC to focus on the real challenges facing the people so that they can engage and discuss such issues rather than polluting the minds of the people; adding that the practice of peddling untruth would not help advance the course of democracy.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com