A member of the governing New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Upper East Regional Communication Team, Andrew Atariwini has described as false claims that the District Chief Executive nominee for Garu, Osman Musah had a hand in the sacking of some personnel of the Nation Builder’s Corp (NABCO) in the District.
Speaking in an interview with dreamzfmonline.com, Mr. Atariwini said the DCE nominee had no hand in the withdrawal of the about 17 NABCO personnel as he was only a Parliamentary candidate at the time of their sacking hence, was not clothed any of authority to order for such an action to be taken.
He added that Mr. Osman Musah ascribes strongly to the president’s vision of reducing unemployment in the district and the country as a whole and therefore, could not have caused the sacking of the personnel on the basis of their political leaning.
“The NDC’s claim that the Parliamentary candidate at the time was the one who ordered the removal of the NABCO personnel is not true. You should know that appointments are coming from Accra and you couldn’t sit here to do that. Besides he was just a Parliamentary candidate and the names of these people, we are told, it was after the election that they were removed and some too within the month of election or a month to election.
Osman knows nothing about it. The vision of Osman is in synch with the vision of the president and the NPP in general is to make sure that we reduce the unemployment gap especially among the youth to the barest minimum for which historically we brought the NABCO initiative to employ not less than 100,000 people at ago. Such a vision cannot be turned upside down and said we are rather trying to render some youth unemployed because they don’t belong to the NPP. That is absolutely false,” he stressed.
Mr. Atariwini argued that the dismissal of the personnel should be laid solely at the doors of the outgoing District Chief Executive, Emmanuel Asore Avoka, who, he said, failed to take any action to avert the situation despite receiving numerous letters from the personnel over their plight.
The party’s communicator, who believes the outgoing DCE orchestrated the sacking of the said personnel, accused him of sabotaging the efforts of the government and doing everything in his power to tarnish the image of the NPP.
“It is the malicious intent of the outgoing DCE, Emmanuel Asore just to tarnish the work of this party. he has done not only in this area but he has done in several areas, frustrated development just to make sure that this government doesn’t look good regardless of the fact that he is beneficiary of the government,” he said
While affirming the DCE nominee’s commitment to the progress of the district, he indicated that the Regional Minister and the nominee are making strenuous efforts to have the personnel reinstated as well as ascertain the circumstances surrounding their removal, stating “we want to assure all NABCO beneficiaries in Garu that not only Osman but even the Regional Minister is working assiduously to ensure that everybody that is affected by this evil act will get justice for it. Checks are being made right from national to the regional to make sure they know where the problems are and for that matter the Regional Minister is being proactive about it and I’m even aware that some committees are being set to get to the bottom of this matter”.
The NPP’s communicator said this in response to threats by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the region to have the nomination of Mr. Osman Musah rejected for the second time if he fails to see to the reinstatement of the affected persons within 7 days.
Speaking on Bolgatanga-based A1 Radio, a leading communication team member of the National Democratic Congress, Abdallah Jonathan Salifu stated that the nominee was rejected in the first round of election because of his role in the sacking of the NABCO personnel, disclosing that the NDC has given him a 7-day ultimatum to have the dismissed personnel reinstated or risk being rejected for the second time.
But Mr. Atariwini, who debunked the allegation against the nominee, admonished the NDC to desist from politicizing the activities of the assembly to score cheap political points as that will not augur well for the progress of the district and the region as a whole.
