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Regional News of Thursday, 20 May 2004

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NPP Women Chase Organiser

Over three thousand women in the Offinso South constituency in the Offinso district of the Ashanti region are on the warpath with the Women?s Organiser of the NPP, Obaapanyin Adjoa Serwaa, for allegedly squandering monies paid to her.

Investigations conducted reveal that women from over 40 communities in the Offinso South constituency were convinced to organise themselves into unions to receive loans from the office of the minister for women and children affairs. Three years after this however, only a handful of the women have received the loans ranging from ?300,000 to ?500,000 and payable after a year for small scale farming ventures.

Narrating her experience, Akua Afrie, the women?s organiser for Koforidua near Offinso said she organised 140 women from her community to receive the loan. She said each of them was made to pay an amount of five thousand as registration fee by the Women?s organiser who is also the queen mother of Anyimaso. They were also made to pay two thousand cedis as monthly dues from September 2003 when they realized that nothing was in store for them.

According to Akua Afrie, two thirds of the dues they paid were collected by Obaapanyin Adjoa Serwaa, who claimed to be using that for her rounds in securing the loans for them. The aggrieved women had earlier on planned to boycott the voter registration exercise conducted recently but were talked to not to take that action.

They have however threatened to boycott parliamentary polls or cast their vote for the NDC if the national executives of the NPP do not take steps to make Adjoa Serwaa return their monies to them. They added that Adjoa Serwaa is a failure and no longer merits her position.