Agona West Constituency needs good political leadership- Candidate

Mr Samuel Oppong, an aspiring independent candidate for the Agona West constituency, has stated that, the area needs a quality, dynamic and visionary Member of Parliament (MP) for accelerated growth and development.      He said the constituency had been deprived of good roads, education and health infrastructures for the past eight years.      Mr Oppong said this when he launched his campaign at Agona Nyakrom on Friday to solicit votes from the electorate in the December 7, Parliamentary election.      Mr Oppong, who is a native of Nyakrom, urged the citizens to vote for him for improved social services.      He noted that Nyakrom, as a Paramount seat of Omanhene, lacked many social amenities such as market, lorry park, a community centre and accessible roads "because they had a visionless leader as their representative in parliament".      Mr Oppong, a former National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Agona West, from 1996-2000, expressed his concern about the low educational standards in the town and pledged to set up an Education Standard Committee to take oversight responsibility of education.      He said when voted as MP, he would use part of his MP's common fund to employ teachers to offer free lessons for the children, adding that student Unions at Nyakrom would also be encouraged to assist in improving education in the area.      Mr Oppong noted that the Education Committee would also offer career counselling to students in Senior High and the universities.      He said he would also assist unearth talented young footballers from Nyakrom.      The aspiring MP pledged to build a modern community centre with internet facilities, to enable the students and pupils to acquire ICT skills.      Mr Oppong promised to develop the Nyakrom Victoria Park into a modern durbar ground, where social gatherings could be held, especially during the Annual Akwambo festival.      Nana Kontor, Apagyahene of Agona Nyakrom urged the people to vote for Mr Oppong because he was contesting as an Independent candidate.      He said the people of the town saw his performance when he was elected as MP eight years ago and expressed the hope that if the mandate is given to him again, the development in the area would definitely improve. GNA

NPP campaign bases on truth and not propaganda

Mrs Agnes Okudzeto, First Vice-Chairperson of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), said on Friday that the party's campaign guiding principle was the graphic presentation of achievements of the party for assessment by the people.      She said that explains why the executive structure of the party at all levels had no position for a propaganda officer.      Mrs Okudzeto was addressing a durbar of mainly women party activists in the South–Dayi constituency at Tongor-Dzemeni on Friday.      Mrs Okudzeto, who accompanied Mrs Rebecca Akufo Addo, wife of NPP flag bearer on a two-day tour of the Volta Region, said propaganda, which entailed craftily using lies and half truths to win sympathy of people, was not part of the NPP style.      She said NPP performance was inviolable and could not be erased by messages and images of lies by other parties.      Mr Kofi Dzamesi, Volta Regional Minister, who was on the trip said projects the NPP government brought to the Dzemeni had established a bond between the party and the people there, which could not be broken by dishonest representations by other parties or individuals.      Mrs Akufo-Addo who commenced her tour at Juapong with a meeting with market women continued to Nkwanta and Kpassa in the northern part of the region.      Her programme hit a snag when on her return from Kpassa, the entire retinue including some wives of defeated aspirants to the NPP presidential candidature, Mr Dzamesi, party activists and hangers-on were held up for about two hours behind an articulated truck carrying scrap and a bus, stuck deep in mud on a partially completed culvert.     Mrs Akufo-Addo had told a rally at Kpassa that the roads in the area would be of paramount concern for her husband when he was elected president.      At all her stops, including Kadjebi she extolled the NPP policies of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), School Feeding Programme, Capitation Grant, infrastructure build-up.      The trip which should have continued to Ho and Dzodze was called off due to the death of the Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Finance and Economic Planning Minister. GNA