Minister rejects ‘no consultation’ claim

Published in the Daily Graphic on 12 September 2013 The Upper East Regional Minister, Alhaji Limuna Mohammed-Muniru, has debunked assertions that the Bawku Central Constituency executive members were not consulted before the nomination of Mr Amadu I.W.Karimu as Municipal Chief Executive (MCE). Alhaji Mohammed-Muniru maintained that due diligence was done and all the various stakeholders at the regional and constituency levels were consulted before two names of the shortlisted applicants were submitted to the National Selection Committee for the final decision to be made by the President. At a meeting with NDC party constituency executive members, aggrieved youth and members of the Municipal Security Committee in Bawku, Alhaji Mohammed-Muniru maintained that he personally informed the constituency chairman and other executive members when the vacancy was announced and tasked them to start the process of receiving applications and shortlisting candidates for vetting. The meeting in Bawku was necessitated by agitation by some aggrieved youth of the NDC in the municipality who were opposed to the nomination of Mr Amadu I.W.Karimu for the position of MCE. Among several accusations, the youth doubted the loyalty of the nominee whom they accused of being a ‘political flirt” who had hopped from one party to another and worked against the NDC in the past. The agitations by the youth also threatened the peace of Bawku due to a a shooting incident recorded in the area on Sunday, September 1, 2013 by an unidentified person. Following the announcement of Mr Karimu’s nomination as the MCE, the constituency chairman, Mr Issifu Asaana, told the agitated youth that he would resign if the appointment was not revoked because he was not consulted. Addressing the meeting, the regional minister explained that when the vacancy was announced, he drove to the constituency chairman’s house in Bawku in the company of the former MCE, Abdulai Musah and the DCEs for Pusiga and Binduri, to hold a meeting with the chairman, his secretary and treasurer. “During our interaction, I told him that the applications he was receiving was not an academic exercise, neither was it a social nor a religious exercise, but it was a political exercise, so he must make sure that as someone who knows the people, he must insist that the people who were applying were party members.” “I told the constituency chairman and the executive members present that we are using him because he knows the people who deserved to be given the position in the municipality,” the regional minister told the meeting. By Benjamin Xornam Glover/Daily Graphic/Ghana http://graphic.com.gh/Politics/minister-rejects-no-consultation-claim.html