Alan used state jet for campaign, but ....

... He 'paid' for it

A presidential aspirant of the New Patriotic Party, Alan Kyerematen reportedly flew into Wa yesterday for what the camp of another candidate described as "campaign hijack.”

With 10 days to go and all 2,330 or so delegates of the National Congress chosen and known, clash meetings among the 17 aspirants have already started.

But, the use of the Ghana Air Force Fokker 27 aircraft, G520, by President Kufuor's preferred candidate, Mr Kyerematen, was the political talk of the Wa town yesterday, with the aspirant' detractors linking it to stories of his alleged access to state resources and state personnel.

But, in a quick rebuttal yesterday, John Kuma, a member of the Alan team, told Accra’s Citi FM that the former Trade & Industry Minister fully paid for the use of the state jet yesterday. “It was not the first time” that a private individual had commissioned for the use of the Air Force jet, Mr Kuma stated.

But, to another aspirant, Alan’s use of the aircraft helped his rival to 'hijack’ arranged meetings with delegates in the town.

That presidential candidate, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, had a scheduled meeting with all 100 National Congress delegates from the Upper West at 10:30am at the Upland Hotel, Wa.

But, he was left frustrated and waiting for more than five hours at the hotel, when Alan dropped into town to also meet the Region’s delegates. “This is not on,” a member of the Hackman campaign team told this paper.

The Hackman team said they had gone through the proper procedure by pushing their request to meet the Region’s delegates through the regional party office. But, their checks with the regional secretariat showed that the party had no prior notice of Alan’s visit.

The Statesman can, however, report that earlier this week, Amin Anta, the Tamale MCE and Paul Afoko stormed the Region and with the support of others, prepared the grounds for their candidate.

When Hackman Owusu-Agyemang finally got around to meet the delegates in the evening, he warned them against allowing the use of cash to pollute their political conscience.

He said that he may not have, for example, the ¢5 million that was given to each of them in their earlier meeting yesterday, but reminded them that he was among the very few financiers who supported them during the harsh days of opposition.

Selling himself as a "true blue party man" who can always be depended on to uphold the interest of the party in thick or thin, Mr Hackman, the first National Treasurer, said the choice was not between the President’s purported choice and the rest of them, but between who is best placed to lead the party into victory against the NDC’s Prof Mills and to give Ghana the kind of mature leadership expected of Kufuor’s successor.

For his part, Mr Kyerematen spoke of himself as the party’s best choice of attracting floating voters. He sold himself as not a vindictive man, who would come down strongly against those who refused to vote for him in the party’s presidential nomination which takes place at the Great Hall, University of Ghana, Legon.

In a related development, The Statesman has in its possession a full list of the accommodation places allocated for all the delegates that are expected to camp at Legon on Friday, December 21, for the congress.

The party also intends to place a complete ban on the use of mobile phones in the Great Hall, to avoid threat or influence phone calls to delegates during the session.