Koforidua, Feb. 8, GNA - Mr Kenneth Nana Addo, Okere Constituency Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has given the assurance that th= e party would retain the Okere parliamentary seat come 2012.

He said the assurance was based on the hard work of the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Mr Dan Kwaku Botwe.

Mr Addo said even though the party would surely retain the seat, he was appealing to all party supporters within the constituency to avoid complacency and work harder in order for them to achieve their aim of winning the seat for four conservative times.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Koforidua on Tuesday, Mr Addo said since 2009, a lot of development had taken place within the constituency through the efforts of the MP. This, he said, ranged from educational development, including the construction of classrooms for some selected schools, payment of fees for brilliant but needy children and scholarships for some students at the various tertiary institutions, amounting to thousands of Ghana cedis. Mr Addo said recently the MP organized vacation classes for final year Junior High School (JHS) students within the constituency who would sit for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in April this year, to prepare them well for the exams.

He said apart from education the MP was also assisting some communities to put up health facilities such as clinics and health centres to make health accessible to them.

Mr Addo said the presence of the MP in the constituency had made the party solid on the ground as compared to the previous years. He said information available to them indicated that Okere was one of the many seats the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), had earmarked to snatch in 2012. Mr Addo gave the assurance that the NPP would defeat anybody who would stand as a parliamentary candidate on the ticket of the NDC with a wider margin.