But for the timely intervention of an assembly woman, the Ablekuma North constituency office of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have still been under the landlady’s lock and key.
The party owed the landlady GH¢1, 200.00 per year for the rent of its constituency office, failure of which landed the NPP a closure of the office for seven months.
Unable to bear the shame no more, an assembly woman for Sakaman electoral area and an ardent supporter of Nana Akufo-Addo, Akua Afriyie, last week had to dole out from her meagre resources as an assembly woman, GH¢1,200.00 to bail out the party.
Prior to the assembly member dishing out the said amount to pay for the rent, the DAILY HERITAGE gathered that the constituency chairman of the party is nursing parliamentary ambition, a development which has angered the current Member of Parliament (MP), Justice Joe Appiah not to support the office, hence, the closure of the party office for seven months.
In an interview, Akua Afriyie, the assembly member for Sakaman who paid the bill said the party has been going through the ordeal for some time now and it had to take her intervention to ensure that party activities went on.
According to her, sometimes they had to go on their knees and beg the landlady for non -payment of rent. This, she said worries her a lot, hence her paying for the rent from her own pocket.
Speaking to the paper in a telephone interview yesterday, Madam Afriyie, who the paper understands was once a women organizer of the NPP intimated that though the constituencies are run by the officers, not even the chairman nor the MP was willing to pay, halting all constituency activities.
“Most often, I pay such bills, when they tell me. It worries me a lot. These are some of the small, small discrepancies that need to be addressed to enable work to go on smoothly, so when they told me, I did not hesitate, the following day, I gave them the money to pay for it so that work can go on.”
She added that, “Constituencies are run by the officers, so if the office is not working, it means you don’t want the constituency work to go on. So, quickly I did that. It was GH¢1, 200.00 per year.”
When asked why the chairman and the MP both failed to settle the bill, she said “I can’t tell. I don’t know why, but then, when we opened they have started working there. The constituency executives have started working.”
Asked about the source of the money she said, “The money is from my pocket, my own resource, my own hard work.”
She told the paper that “if there is a problem that needs to be addressed for a party work to go on, why not, if I’m made aware, I will do that because, for me my goal is, we need and want NPP to come to power and support, particularly, Nana Akufo-Addo, for whom I’m fighting to come and relieve us from the problems we are going through.”
When asked whether assembly members are allowed to engage in politics, she replied, “You know, it is supposed to be that, but it is not. Even at the assembly, we have NDC caucus and we have NPP caucus. It is not supposed to be because we are all members of the assembly and we are not supposed to take sides, but it is, they go for meetings, we go for meetings.”
Advising the constituency executives, she said, “I think we need to work harder, if the executives have been voted into power, I think, they should do everything within their power to make sure that the office is run through the constituency.”
The former constituency organizer said he personally informed the MP of the constituency, Justice Joe Appiah and Kofi Bella, the constituency chairman about the development, but seven months down the line, they have both abandoned the constituency office.
