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Concerned Youth Groups of NPP in the Tamale accuse Chairman Samba led executives of underperformance

The Concerned Youth Groups of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Tamale Metropolis have accused the Northern Regional executives of the ruling party of failure to increase the number of parliamentary seats in the region.

The group stated that though it was clear that the now three regions carved out of one, which is the Northern Region were falling for the NPP, a little push from the party executives could have earned the NPP more seats in these regions.

The concerned youth group however stated that the current northern regional executives led by Chairman Samba failed to take advantage of such situation to increase the NPP parliamentary seats in the region.

Convener of the group, Napadow Clifford Atchulo at the press briefing, stated that, Parliamentary Candidates who won their seats in the region, did so largely on their own efforts, saying the contribution of the regional executives were insignificant to winning more seats for the party.

He however commended the Savanna and North East Regional executives for increasing parliamentary seats within their jurisdictions.

Clifford Atchulo’s group also accused the NPP Regional executives of “causing more harm than good to the grassroots members and the party at large in the region.”

Throughout the last Four years, the regional executives failed to provide job opportunities for members of the party most especially the youth in the region”, although he indicated that the NPP under President Akufo Addo implemented series of social interventions including NABCO, forestry, planting for food and jobs to cater for the youth.

However the pro-NPP group alleged that all these opportunities went into wrong hands as a result of unconcerned attitude of the regional executives.

 “They sat idle and watched those opportunities sold to people who are already on the government payroll, imagine you were asked to pay GhC. 500 to be given NABCO or forestry guard, these were the predicaments of some of the NPP Youth in the region,” they alleged. 

Clifford Atchulo stated that now is the time to bring every wrong doing among the regional executives to the public domain should it continue.

Read the full statement below:

STATEMENT PRESENTED IN A PRESS CONFERENCE

04 FEBRUARY, 2021.

NORTHERN REGIONAL EXECUTIVES OF NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY (NPP) RUDELY NEGLECTING GRASSROOT MEMBERS. – BY CONCERN YOUTH GROUPS OF NPP IN TAMALE (CYG TAMALE).

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Good morning distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen of the press and thank you for honoring our invitation to be part of this press conference. We called you here this morning to help carry our grievances to those who matter as far as NPP is concerned. We those in grassroots have been hollowing in sorrow for a very long time due to the neglect and poor handling of us by regional executives of our party. We have been neglected, mishandled, deceived and sometimes got our heads crushed against one another in other to cause disaffection among us for them to have their way. We think this is the right time to bring out our grievances for the top hierarchy of our great party to be aware of and as well intervene to find lasting solutions to these grievances since they have the tendency to cause tension in the party as well as the region.

Ladies and gentlemen, our focus will be on four critical issues:

1. The lackadaisical attitude of executives towards job opportunities for we the youth.

 2. Awarding of government contracts to themselves to the detriment of the youth.

3. The inability of the Regional executives to marshal the arsenals of the party in the region to canvas for more votes which could have culminated into more parliamentary seats for the party in the 2020 general election.

 4. The shambolic tour been undertaken by the regional chairman to create the impression that all is well with youth groups in the region, which is far from the truth.

Ladies and gentleman, the Nana Addo administration upon assumption of office in 2017 started the implementation of policies such as the Nation Builder’s Corp (NABCO), Forestry guards, planting for food and jobs just to mention but a few to mitigate the unemployment situation in the country that the government inherited from the John Mahama led NDC administration. Ladies and gentlemen, it will interest you to know that these job opportunities created by government to help the unemployed youth have gone into wrong hands as far as northern region is concerned due to the unconcern attitude of our regional executives. They sat ideal and watch those opportunities sold to people who are already on government payroll. Assuming been unemployed and you asked to cough out Ghc.500.00 to be given NABCO or Forestry guard. These were the predicament of some NPP youth in the region, the opportunities were sold to people who could afford and since majority of the youth cannot afford, there were left out even though they qualify to be employed under these programs.

 Another clear example is the recent brouhaha surrounding the missing Northern Development Authority (NDA) tricycles. In fact, some of the tricycles were sold at a price of Ghc.4000.00 to people who could afford. Is NDA not supposed to create job opportunities for unemployed youth in it catchment area? If the answer to this question is yes, then how come the tricycles were sold to rich men in the region instead of the unemployed youth? How could the unemployed youth be able to purchase the tricycles? Remember the original plan was for the authority to give it out to the unemployed youth on credit bases to work and pay back. But we saw the regional executives including the regional chairman and some constituency executives supervised the selling of the tricycles to the detriment of the unemployed youth in the region.

Ladies and gentlemen, on the issue of awarding of contracts to themselves, it is a known fact that the executives do collaborate with officials in charge of the awarding of contracts to award same to themselves. It has become increasingly difficult for non-executives to secure contracts. Even known contractors in the region who fall within the youth brackets are not getting it easy when it comes to award of contracts, if you are not prepare to cash out their 10 percent to them then forget getting a contract. Sometimes last year we had a bitter encounter with the Tamale central constituency executives when they met us to deliberate the way forward for election 2020. We pointed out their poor treatment of members of grassroots including us. Some of them promised to award some contracts to us and till date our contract documents are still with the party regional first vice chairman Alhaji Sunday. The said documents were presented to him on our behalf by some of the constituency executives. Another deceptive regional executive, Alhaji Rashid COP sometimes last year took our contract document and till date we do not know the fate of the contract he promise to award to us. In all these instances, we could not secure the contracts because we do not have 10 percent of the contract sum to pay to them.

Another sad story of the grassroots, in 2018 some contracts they claimed belong to the youth within the region were again awarded to themselves. They later gave an amount of GHC550.00 to each youth group and their claim was that the said amounts were proceed from the sale of the said contracts. We think this is not acceptable.

Ladies and gentlemen, have you come to think of why the regional executives lead by chairman Samba have not been able to fulfill their own promise of adding 6 parliamentary seats to increase the tally of  seats from 9 to 15 in the region? Whereas their counterparts in the Savannah and North East regions made some gains in the 7th December 2020 election, they are stuck to the previous number of seats held by NPP in the region. They Savannah region moved from 1 seat to 3 seats whiles the North East region moved from 3 to 4 but northern region maintained the same number of seats. The executives wilfully failed to increase the number of seats in the region.

 Even though it was clear that the three northern regions which were split by the Nana Addo government to create more regions purposely for development were falling for the NPP, any little push could have earn the NPP more seats in the regions. But Chairman Samba and his colleagues Executives failed to take advantage to increase the NPP parliamentary seats in the region. Candidates who won their seats, won on their own efforts, the contribution of the regional executives were insignificant to win the party’s parliamentary candidates the seats.

Ladies and gentlemen the recent tour undertaken by chairman Samba and some other executives to bases of some youth groups in Tamale environ was nothing but shambolic. It is part of their deceptive strategy. They falsely and pretentiously took the tour to create the impression that all is well and they are in touch with the grassroots. This is far from the truth, all is not well down here. The grassroots are suffering as a result of neglect by the executives. The said tour targeted a hand full of youth groups. They have lost touch with majority of the youth groups and do not know what their grievances are. What they do best is to sabotage youth groups that speak against their wrong doings. But we are not perturb, from now onwards we will bring every wrong doing of theirs to the public domain especially those that bother on youth groups and grassroots members to deter them from repeating same.

To conclude, we want to make it clear that we are not doing the bidding of any person or group of persons neither are we trying to discredit any person or group of persons. Our sole interest is to fight for the well-being of all youth groups and the entire grassroots supporters of our great party including members of this youth group within the region. Even though we were disappointed in the regional executives, we put our grievances aside and worked for the party to attain another term, and this time round we will not sit aloof and watch regional executives to take the youth for granted. As we stated earlier from now onwards we will monitor and bring to the public domain all wrong doings on the part of the executives especially those that are perpetuated against the youth groups and the ordinary grassroots supporters of the party in the region.

Once again thank you for coming, we count on you to send our grievances to the top hierarchy of the NPP through your various media houses.

Thank you.

Story By: Alhassan Yakubu

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