PRESS STATEMENT BY CONCERN NDC YOUTH OF CHIANA-PAGA



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, Feb. 17 2016

PAGA - Ghana



We the Members of the concern NDC youth of Chiana-Paga constituency wish to call on the President and the leadership of the NDC to take immediate action on Hon. Abuga Pele, our current MP and former National Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), to pave the way for the election or selection of a new candidate to contest the 2016 parliamentary election.

The objective fact of Mr. Abuga Pele and others, having been charged with 'willfully causing financial loss to the state and defrauding by false pretenses and dishonestly causing financial loss to public property,' make him not only lack the integrity to contest for the Parliamentary seat of the Chiana-Paga constituency in 2016 , but also takes away the credibility and integrity he requires to campaign on the NDC party ticket for himself and the President HE John Dramani Mahama in this year's elections.

We know the MP has not been convicted. We also know he is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless he has lost the moral high ground. His Excellency John Dramani Mahama himself has cited the case of our sitting MP Mr. Abuga Pele as an example of his government's 'indiscriminate fight against corruption'. We obviously need a new candidate.

We know that there are powerful people within the government and the party who are standing behind Abuga Pele to misbehave and take our party members in Chiana- Paga on ransom because of reasons known only to them. The NDC party interest is supreme.

We are the majority of the youth from the constituency and we can say emphatically that if Mr Pele is allowed to contest even the parliamentary primaries, it will be an indictment on the party's moral mandate and an insult to the members the party who are ready for change. Indeed it will be an absurdity.

We do not expect our own party and government who indicted the sitting MP Mr. Abuga Pele in corruption, to allow the same person to be its candidate. We have no iota of doubt, that if Abuga Pele becomes our candidate for 2016, the NDC and President John Mahama will lose in Chiana-Paga in the forthcoming general elections.

It is for this, that we cannot understand why until today, the Chiana – Paga constituency NDC parliamentary Primaries remain on hold to the detriment of the party's chances of maintaining the seat in 2016.

Already our opponents have started using Mr Abuga's financial scandal case as a campaign message against the NDC and the MP. The NPP's campaign here is already in high gear whiles we still do not have a candidate.

We the NDC youth in Chiana-Paga have been extremely patient for the past several months; yet, reason has failed to prevail from the top.

Given the reasons above, coupled with Mr. Pele's recalcitrance and utter refusal to listen to reason and step down honorably, we call on his Excellency John Mahama, to show leadership and take an immediate decision on Chiana-Paga once and for all – unless the NDC leadership is willing to lose in Chiana-Paga.



We need a Parliamentary Candidate Now!!!!





Signed by :

DAVID AMOLIGA

THOMAS JUMAH

APURI NICHODEMUS