�Spend Your Money Elsewhere�

The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Nkwanta South Constituency in the Volta Region, Mr. Gershon Gbediame, has advised the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to stop spending their cash in the area �because I can tell them that their investment would not yield them any gains.� In an interview with the MP at the La Palm Royal Hotel last Wednesday where The Finder newspaper caught up with him at a conference, Mr. Gbediame said he had picked information that the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, with some party stalwarts and supporters had stormed Nkwanta South a couple of days ago where they allegedly got out their wallets and doled out cash to the youth and people of the area. The MP said, �If the alleged dashing of money was a bait to make the people of Nkwanta South vote for the NPP in this year�s general election, then I can tell the NPP that is a wrong bait. I would advise the NPP to go and spend their money elsewhere.� According to Mr. Gbediame, throughout his four terms as MP for Nkwanta South, he had worked tirelessly to win the confidence of the chiefs and people of the constituency. The NPP, he observed, might want to use the area�s deplorable stretch of road as a campaign message against him and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), �but I can assure them that the people will not buy it.� If the NPP had been serious with the construction of that stretch from Dodo Papase to Nkwanta throughout their eight years in governance, they could have given the people a temporary coated road surface, the MP argued. He said, �When you go to the area now, as I speak to you, contractors have moved their equipments to the site and I can promise the good people of Nkwanta South that the NDC would temporary coat their dusty roads for them while we all await the giant eastern corridor construction work.� The MP explained that the Government of Ghana had sourced for funds from the European Union (EU) for that project, adding that all persons whose properties were affected by the road construction had been duly compensated. �The NPP do not have any campaign message for my people. Thus, if they think sharing money to the electorates would convince them to vote against me, I can tell them that they have failed,� Mr. Gbediame opined. When contacted on phone from his base at Breweniase, a suburb of Nkwanta, the NDC Youth Organiser for Nkwanta South, Eric Boateng, denied the NPP giving money to the people of the area, explaining that Nana Addo went to the constituency to formally familiarize himself with the people and officially introduce the party�s parliamentary candidate to the people. �I tailed them throughout and there is nowhere in their tour of the constituency that Nana Addo or his team shared monies. I would have been the first to trumpet that they were here to buy votes,� Eric Boateng said. He admitted that a sizeable crowd hailed the NPP presidential candidate, �but that does not shake the foundations of the NDC at all. The NDC is unshakeable and resolute in the constituency,� Nana Addo, Eric Boateng recalled, visited the constituency on Friday and continued his tour to Nkwanta North and some parts of the Northern Region.