The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) hereby appeals to His Excellency John Dramani Mahama to reconsider his decision to revoke the appointment of the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ahafo Ano South, Honorable Gabriel Barima.
Based On the investigations conducted by the party, the NEC has come to the inescapable conclusion that the decision if left to stand will not only amount to serious injustice to the DCE but will seek to dampen the enthuthiasm of other DCEs in heir attempt to deal with indiscipline and corruption in their various areas of jurisdiction. We strongly believe that if the President has had the full and accurate brief about the following facts of the case his decision on the matter would have been different;
1. A clique of the staff of Mankranso hospital has over the years been engaged in various unprofessional activities, including victimization of patients based on their ethnic and political backgrounds and, show of disrespect to political and traditional authorities in the district who dared to complain about their misconduct. This has led to a situation where many residents of the district choose to seek medical attention in the neighbouring districts.
2. The DCE who had himself gone through some bitter experiences with this clique had reported to the District Health Management Team (DHMT) for action to be taken without success leading to bad blood developing between his office and the health authorities.
3. District health authorities apparently not happy with this situation decided to use the occasion of their end of year get- together to smoke peace pipe with the political authorities. Three senior members of the district hospital were therefore sent to personally invite the DCE and to explain the rational of the meeting.
4. Excited about the prospects of resolving this problem, Hon. Gabriel Barima readily accepted the invitation and attended the function on the said date. In the middle of his address some of the staff whom he thought had repented from their earlier misdeeds started heckling him using unprintable words directed at him including, the word ‘tweaa’. The senior staff who had come to his office earlier on looked on helplessly and, this led to the DCE asking ‘ who said twea’ and decided to abandon the function, but was prevailed upon by some of his senior staff who were present to continue with his speech.
5. This matter was not considered to be so significant as to make the headlines when it happened However, several weeks later an unknown person who had filmed the function decided to put a doctored version of the clip on the internet.
6. Some media houses including Joy FM quickly picked this clip and succeeded in creating the impression that the DCE had insulted the chiefs who were present at the function. The DCE was reprimanded by the minister of Local Government and made to render apology to the chiefs whom he readily did.
7. After the President had delivered the state of the Nation’s address a young man posing as a supporter of the DCE approach the DCE at his house to show how excited he was when he heard the President using the expression ‘Twea are you my coequal’ to deal with the heckling of the NPP in parliament engaged Honourable Gabriel Barima in a lot of idle talk. Unknown to the DCE the young man was recording the conversation with a secret recorder. Some days later this secret recording was again played on the same JOY FM as if the DCE had granted another interview to the radio station after his apology.
8. Another point which has so far not featured in this discussion but which could never the less not be lost sight off is the anti corruption crusade which the DCE has been embarking o n since his appointment some 20 months ago. This led to the arrest of his district co-coordinating director by EOCO for diverting over 300 bags of cement belonging to the District. So far 250 bags have been retrieved and the co-ordinating director transferred to another district. It is a known fact that in spite of the fact that Gabriel Barima had not received one cedi by way of salary payment during his 20 months stay in office he has resisted all temptations to touch the assembly’s resources.
The party wishes to reiterate the point that we are running a decentralized administration in Ghana with the district assembly headed by the DCE being the highest decision- making body in the district. We are therefore of the opinion that any suspected disrespect shown the DCE of the district that go uninvestigated and unpunished amount to condoning of indisciplne within the Ghanaian society. We also recognize the fact that fighting corruption may lead to DCEs stepping on the toes of some sensitive people within the community. They therefore need all the support, encouragement and understanding of higher authorities if the Better Ghana Agenda of fighting corruption is to be achieved..
It is clear from the narration above that Honourable Gabriel Barima was rather the victim of insults, disrespect and misinformation. In furtherance of the nation’s interest we think that it is the perpetrators of this acts that must be sought for and punished rather than their victim.
In conclusion, the party wishes to state that in spite of these attempts to malign and destroy him Honourabe Gabriel Barima’s achievement as a DCE remains exemplary for others to emulate.
In arriving at this conclusion we have taken into consideration the views of the traditional authorities in the Ahafo Ano South District who sent an eight-man strong delegation of chiefs from the district to petition the presidency and the party head office to get Honourable Gabriel Barima reinstated as the DCE.
We hope this appeal finds favour with His Excellency the President who had demonstrated on several occasions his preparedness to change his mind when further and better particulars are provided in each of the cases.
Signed: 30/3/14
Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, General Secretary.