General News of Wednesday, 26 March 2003

Source: Gye Nyame Concord

Minister arrives after closing prayers to deliver keynote address

THE NATIONAL launch of the National Wildlife Project at Bechem in the Brong Ahafo Region ended with a dramatic twist that left observers questioning the commitment of government functionaries to Vice President Aliu Mahama’s anti-indiscipline campaign.

At the centre of the sad event was no other person than the 62-year-old Nkaseim-born Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, Mr. Thomas Broni.

The Minister, who was scheduled to give the keynote address at the function, turned up so late that he arrived when closing prayers for the ceremony had already been said.

More worrying was the fact that the event itself, which was scheduled to kick-off by 9:30am, began a little over three hours later because of the lateness of the Minister and ended only for him to turn up.

By 9:30am when the programme was expected to begin, Broni was nowhere. And by 11:30am when the invited guests, including chiefs and government officials had taken their seats for pretty two hours, the organisers were in a dilemma as to whether the Deputy Minister would appear at all, as all attempts to get contact with him through his cell phone failed.

Realising that they could no longer keep the people in suspense, the organisers chose to start the function with or without Broni. That was exactly 12:30pm, when nananom and other invited guests had been sitting in the scorching sun for pretty three hours.

That was Act 1, Scene 1. But Act 2, Scene 2 was the funniest of all.

Just after the closing prayers and the people were about to leave, the Master of Ceremony for the day appealed with some difficulty to the people to wait for an important announcement, which later turned out to be unimportant. That was around 3:45pm and the announcement was that the Guest of Honour of the day, Deputy Minister Thomas Broni had arrived, so people should sit down and listen to his keynote address.

Probably believing that people would not accept any apology, Broni rightly did not give one and the people accepted it by walking over him. Maybe, this is another minus from the cap of Broni, who is already battling reports of having snatched the wife of a fellow party member.