General News of Monday, 4 July 2011

Source: The Herald

Robbers Break Into Fiifi Kwetey’s Office

By Gifty Arthur

Weeks after The Herald broke the wrangling between the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ketu South and a Deputy Minister for Finance at the Ketu South Constituency of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), a report from the constituency says that armed robbers have broken into the Deputy Minister’s campaign office at Aflao.

The armed robbers made away with several valuables, including two laptops, cash, mobile phones, credit cards, a Vodafone wireless GSM fixed line, computer monitor, external disc hard drive, digital recorder and two memory chips.

A group called; “Friends of Hon. Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey”, which is championing the minister’s intention to contest the seat, has since reported the matter to the Aflao police.

The robbers had taken advantage of a heavy downpour and blackout in town to ransack the deputy minister’s office. The office is one of the five zonal offices set up by Mr. Kwetey towards ousting the incumbent MP, Albert Kwesi Zigah.

The spokesperson for the group, one Lord-Chester Ben Ati, disclosed to The Herald, about two Sundays ago that he received a telephone call around 2:30am from a neighbour that their office had been broken into by armed robbers. He said he quickly ran to the crime scene to learn at firsthand what had happened.

Upon reaching the vicinity, he said he met the presence of the Police who had come to the crime scene for the same purpose. The robbers had escaped leaving behind tools they used to bore a huge hole into the office to have access to the items.

Three other shops on the same premises as the Fiifi Kwetey’s office, were also ransacked by the robbers. Items worth millions of cedis were stolen.

Mr. Ati gave names of the shops as Able Link, a distributor of mobile phone cards; Season Travel and Tour and the Airtel Ghana Limited office.

At the Airtel shop items that were stolen included an unspecified recharged phone card, an undisclosed amount of cash and mobile phones which were on displayed.

At the Able Link shop, the robbers took away only mobile phone cards. The robbers had to flee from Season Travel and Tour office, after sensing danger, leaving behind the tools they were operating with.

The tools included a car jerk, hand saw, scroll bar, matches, machetes and two umbrellas which they had used in the rain.

Asked if he suspect any foul play, Mr. Ati said the Police is presently investigating the case, and that until they come out with their report, he would not be able to tell if those who broke in were true robbers, or came there for any other reason.

It would be recalled that just last month, The Herald reported of a seeming bickering between the sitting MP and the deputy minister who is eyeing the former’s Parliamentary seat.

The MP, however, told this paper that he is not perturbed by the activities of the group or the deputy minister since there are better able people in the area than the minister to challenge him. He, therefore, described Fiifi Kwetey as a “no match” should he decide to contest him next year for the seat.