Probe Appoh's claim of vote buying - NPP

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called for the Member of Parliament for Gomoa Central constituency, Rachel Appoh, to be probed with regards to her recent claim of vote buying that characterised the ruling National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Presidential and parliamentary primary in her constituency.

“That is a telling indictment on the democratic process,” a Deputy Communications Director of the NPP, Anthony Karbo stated in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM on Tuesday.

According to Karbo, such a grave confession made by the former Deputy Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister should not be swept under the carpet because it had compromised the credibility of the electoral process that had been professed by the NDC to be clean to a large extent.

This, he said, leaves doubts in the minds of Ghanaians, especially when the NDC was all over brandishing the overwhelming endorsement of the President who garnered over 90 percent support base in the just ended NDC primaries.

“Vote buying irrespective of the party you come from is condemnable – all political parties must work to stamp out vote buying. What is more dangerous in that regard is when you’re in charge of the public purse.”

The former Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection on the eve of the NDC primaries raised suspicions of manipulation in the electoral process in her constituency to favour her political opponents.

This, she believes, were schemes by her detractors to cause her downfall in politics.

She, for instance, cited a case where she had to dole out monies to pay electorates before managing to reduce the dissenting votes of NO against President John Dramani Mahama. Her constituents, she added, were generally peeved with the fact that they’ve been denied their share of the national cake in the area for far too long.

Despite the district placing second in the national poverty index, Appoh decried the fact that she’s had to virtually beg for the constituency to be noticed. A case in point she says is the exclusion of the constituency from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme.