Dep Communications Minister Is Dead

THE Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central and Deputy Minister for Communications and Technology, Mr John Setuni Achuliwor, is dead. Mr Achuliwor, 50, died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Wednesday , January 29, after the car on which he was travelling to his constituency was involved in an accident.

He was traveling in the company of two others, the NPP’s Upper West Regional Organiser, Mahmoud and his driver who died on the spot. Mr Mahmoud has undergone a successful operation at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.

The accident occurred near Ejisu on Saturday when their vehicle ran into a broken down articulated truck loaded with iron rods. This is the second time that the NPP has lost a Member of Parliament. In July last year, the NPP MP for Kumawu, Reo Addai Basoah died after a short illness.

The Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, announced this at yesterday?s sitting, during which a minute?s silence was observed in his memory. The Late MP was first elected to Parliament in 1994 as an Independent candidate in a by-election after the death of Mr Gotfried Abulu. He, however, lost the seat in the 1996 elections.

In the 2000 elections, he contested the seat on the New Patriotic Party?s ticket and won and was subsequently nominated as a Deputy Minister for Communications and Technology. After his secondary education at the Bawku Secondary School and the St John Bosco?s College at Navrongo, he attended the University of Cape Coast, graduating in agriculture.

He also studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where he graduated in agronomy and the University of Manchester for a post-graduate in Rural Poverty Alleviation. He holds another certificate in curriculum development from the Temple University in the United States. He worked at ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation in Ghana and The Gambia between 1993 and 1998.

Meanwhile, a delegation of MPs led by the Minister for Defence and acting Minister for Interior, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, yesterday called on the bereaved family to offer its condolences.