Samari Gears Up To Unseat NDC In Garu-Tempane Constituency(30th September 2011 07:36:14 by Benjamin Glover)

The New Patriotic Party Parliamentary Candidate for Garu-Tempane in the Upper East Region, Mr Alhassan Samari, has urged electorates in the constituency to take a cue from what he terms the ruling National Democratic Congress’ failure in government and vote the party out of power.

Mr Samari, a former Upper East Regional Minister during the Kufuor Administration, said since the NDC assumed the reins of power, the country in general and the constituency in particular had not witnessed the “Better Ghana Agenda” promised Ghanaians and the people of Garu-Tempane.

He has, therefore, called on the electorates to vote for him as Member of Parliament and Nana Akufo-Addo as president.

The former regional minister who is making a second attempt to unseat the incumbent MP, Mr Dominic Azumah of the NDC, said this in an interview after he addressed a mammoth gathering of supporters in the constituency.

He opined that the voters were misled to vote for the NDC based on vile propaganda and urged the electorates to learn a lesson or two from the past mistakes and vote for the NPP in order to bring development to the area.

Mr Samari urged members of the party to eschew division and pull together as members of one family in order to unseat the NDC. “Party unity is key. In the past, we allowed our ranks to be divided and this cost us victory. The time has now come for us to forgive one another and rally behind the party to regain power,” he said.

He recounted a number of successes chalked up by the NPP in Garu-Tempane during his tenure as regional minister such as the carving of the Garu-Tempane District out of the Bawku Municipal Assembly, initial development of the Tempane Senior High School, the proposed Modern Market Complex for the district, extension of electricity, construction of roads and rehabilitation of the major steel bridge over the Tamale river, among many other projects.

Comparing the performance of the two parties, Mr Samari noted that the NPP did far more than the NDC was doing to improve the lives of the people and said it was about time the people voted out the NDC and gave the mandate to the NPP.

The Constituency Chairman, Mr Joseph Akudibilah, for his part, maintained that the NPP’s achievement in the district was unparalleled. “Even though we cherished a property owning democracy, we legislated the best pro-poor policies for the country since independence,” he said.

Mr Akudibilah, a former deputy minister for defence, said apart from building school infrastructure the district also benefited from subsidy on fertilisers for farmers, National Health Insurance Scheme, school feeding programme, among many others.

He said in contrast, the NDC government, instead of continuing from where the NPP left off, are failing and their regime had been characterised by “a myriad of excuses, vindictiveness, property grabbing, failed economic policies and lip services at bridging the development gap between the north and the south.”

He challenged the current MP for the area, Mr Dominic Azumah, to point out clearly what he had done for the area, having served in Parliament for four terms.

The Constituency Election Coordinator for the NPP, Mr Emmanuel Asore Avoka, highlighted the major achievements of Mr Samari when he was regional minster in the NPP era between 2005 and 2008. He said during that period, 54 classroom blocks, 20 KVIP’s, six clinics, eight market structures and 15 teachers’ quarters were constructed.

He added that exercise books, furniture and text books were distributed, electricity was extended to six communities, feeder roads were constructed, bridges were reconstructed while twenty boreholes and streetlights were provided to various communities.

In addition, he said a number persons where supported to pursue further education in the fields of nursing and teaching.

In the view of Mr Avoka, all these were verifiable records chalked up by the NPP. He, therefore, challenged the NDC and its functionaries in the district to tell the people what real achievements they had chalked up since coming to office.

While calling on the DCE to re-fix the faulty streetlights in the district to bring back smiles on the faces of the people of the area, Mr Avoka also called on the President to launch investigations into the circumstances under which the current DCE put up a private house close to his official residence within a year or two after his appointment.

The Regional Secretary of the NPP, Mr Joseph Kpemka Dindoick, who is also a former DCE for Garu-Tempane, accused the NDC for borrowing excessively without corresponding developments on the ground to account for the loans secured and urged the Ghanaians to vote out the NDC.

The Regional Organiser of the NPP, Mr Yaw Mort, reiterated the need for all members to eschew disunity and work together to bring the party back into power.