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Politics of Sunday, 16 November 2008

Source: GNA

NPP, NDC and CPP boycott parliamentary candidate debate

Kumasi, Nov 16, GNA - Disappointments were written on the faces of the supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Convention People's Party (CPP) when their Parliamentary Candidates for the Asawasi Constituency failed to show up for a parliamentary debate organized for them on Saturday.
Most of the supporters were so disappointed that they had no other option than to leave the Asawasi community centre, venue for the debate as hopes of their candidates coming faded after they waited for hours.
The debate was organized by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) in collaboration with the Ghana Federation of the Disabled and was on the theme "Promoting Issue-Based Campaign". The debate among others aimed at giving the opportunity for the candidates to highlight to the electorate what they will do to mobilize the requisite political will and resources to address their needs when given the nod.
Giving reasons for the inability of the candidates to turn up for the debate, Madam Harriet Potakey, Programmes Officer of the CDD, said the candidates were given prior knowledge about the debate and they even gave the assurance to attend. She said the candidates said they were also engaged somewhere and as such could not attend.
However, the People's National Convention (PNC) and Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) had their parliamentary candidates present and they had the opportunity to outline their vision to the electorate.
Mr Illiasu Mohammed of the PNC promised to uplift educational standards in the area when given the mandate, saying that he would initiate vibrant programmes to ensure that all children of school going-age were enrolled in school.
He also promised to set up a fund to train the numerous school drop outs in the constituency to acquire employable skills. Mr Mohammed Bashir-Tijani of the DFP also promised to institute a programme which would aim at sensitizing the people on sanitation issues to help improve on sanitation in the area. On security, he said he would meet all opinion leaders on regular basis to brainstorm and identify ways of curbing criminal activities to enhance peace to accelerate the socio-economic development of the area.