Regional News of Monday, 12 April 2004

Source: GNA

Kpone/Katamanso NDC elects parliamentary candidate

Kpone, April 12, GNA - The Kpone/Katamanso constituency of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at its primaries at Tema on Saturday elected a business Executive, Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo as its parliamentary candidate.

He polled 93 votes against Mr Stephen Tetteh Narteh also a business executive and Mr Francis Otu a teacher who had three votes each. Officials of the Electoral Commission conducted the election. The primaries became necessary because the sitting Member of Parliament (MP), Madam Beatrice Naa Afiyie Ashong who has served two terms declared her intention not to seek re-election but she did not assign any reasons.

Mr Afotey-Agbo said if elected, he would solicit the support of the constituents to enable him to continue with the development programme of his predecessor.

He called on the electorate to vote him into parliament in the forthcoming elections and promised that he would not discriminate against any group of persons in the execution of projects.

Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, National Organiser of the NDC and MP for Fanteakwa, said the party was as strong as before and called on all activists to close their ranks and work harder to win more supporters for the party to enable it regain power.

He said the NDC has targeted 30 percent votes from the Ashanti region and the Volta region would continue to be "a sure banker" for NDC. Mr Ampofo said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was practising bad governance, which has brought about socio-economic hardship to the people.

He also said the fact that the NPP could not go by its manifesto was an indication that the party can never win the forthcoming elections.

Mr Ampofo said the party was considering giving certificates to party agents as incentives and urged them to continue to be committed to the NDC and to prevent infiltration of NDC by other party members during the elections.

On the registration exercise, he said the NDC had a hint that there was going to be shortage of registration forms during the voters registration exercise at the strong holds of the party and that developments during the exercise proved the NDC right.

Madam Afiyie Ashong said developments projects carried out during her tenure of office included the construction of schools adding that she donated cement, lamps, jerseys and various items to some schools and communities in the constituency.

Present at the primaries were Mr Joshua Alabi, NDC Campaign manager, Dr Farouk Briamah and Madam Frances Asiam both leading members of the party.