NDC & NPP slug it out for Ndoum's seat

The ruling NPP & opposition NDC have started a war of words over their chances of ‘throwing overboard’ Dr. Paa Kwesi Ndoum as MP for the Komenda Edina Eguafo Abiriem (KEEA).

The CPP, on whose ticket Dr. Ndoum stands annexed the seat from the opposition NDC in 2004, and according to the NDC’s deputy National Youth Organiser Adams Coffie, the seat will revert to his party in 2008.

NPP’s Central Regional Secretary Kwamena Duncan has however described the NDC’s confidence in winning the seat as a big joke, adding that they will infact win the three other remaining seats in the region. The party currently has fifteen of the nineteen seats in the region.

Ndoum’s annexing of the seat in 2004 was greatly enhanced by a decision taken by the NPP and the personal intervention of President Kufuor to prevent the NPP’s candidate Nana Ato Arthur from contesting.

That electoral pact is not expected to repeat itself in 2008, with the NPP making it clear that it will be putting up a candidate and Dr. Ndoum ‘jumping’ out of the government to concentrate on building the CPP.

Mr. Coffie told the dailyEXPRESS in an interview at the party headquarters that the failure of Dr. Ndoum to fulfill electoral promises he made to the electorate makes it a fertile ground for the NDC which will work hard to win back the seat.

The KEEA constituency is said to be one of the most deprived in the Central region with a population estimated to be less than a million, with the majority engaged in fishing activities.

The level of deprivation sharply contrasts with its tourism potential embedded in the presence of the huge slave dungeon, a symbol of centuries of slavery and colonialism that continue to be a major source of revenue for the government.

Surprisingly, the people have always been deprived of the financial returns generated from the dungeon, leaving most of them impoverished with little or no alternative of survival apart from fishing.

Adams Coffie who was until recently the Central Regional youth organizer of the NDC is confident the NDC will bring the needed economic relief to the people. He said they lost the seat due to the strong alliance that existed between the NPP and the CPP. .

“We are certainly ready for such a move and I can tell you nothing will happen in that regard,” he told the dailyEXPRESS. .

But Mr. Duncan says they are ready for the NDC and the CPP, adding that the people in the region have tasted two separate parties and are in a better position to judge for themselves.

Meanwhile the decision by the current regional minister Nana Ato Arthur to contest the seat has been cited by political analysts as a key factor for the resignation of Dr. Paa Kwesi Ndoum as Minister of Public Sector Reform.

Dr. Ndoum, who until his resignation was the minister for public sector reform and head of the country’s Millennium Challenge Authority, has widely been criticized by some members of his constituency for not taking active interest in their welfare and, rather spend most of his time serving the interest of a government whose ideology is in complete a variance with the CPP on whose ticket he stood and won the KEEA seat in 2004.