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Tag: Assin Central Member of Parliament

  • Big English and suits don’t make a president – Ken Agyapong

    Big English and suits don’t make a president – Ken Agyapong

    A prospective presidential contender for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, has criticized those who think he is unqualified to represent the party in the 2024 elections.

    The vociferous Assin Central Member of Parliament said his critics say he is not “presidential material” because he does not speak impeccable English like some of his contenders.

    According to him, the youth needs a candidate who will provide them with jobs and alleviate their sufferings and not a candidate who is only interested in wearing expensive suits and always speaking the Queen’s English.

    Kennedy Agyapong also said it seems his opponents want to undermine all the sacrifices he had made for the NPP over the years.

    “Who in the party has worked more than me? I have made lots of sacrifices for the party by using my money to fund party activities. Today they are saying I’m not presidential material. What is presidential material? Is presidential material someone who can speak good English, wears suits and does not care about the welfare of the youth?”

    “Between someone who says good to see you and the other who encourages you to get up to go to work, which one of them is presidential material? We want jobs, we are not joking at all. We are tired of listening to big English all the time,” he asserted.

    Mr. Ohene Agyapong called on the delegates to make a wise choice by electing a formidable candidate who can lead the party to help the party win the 2024 general elections.

    “My advice goes to all the delegates to try and make the right choice in the election of a presidential candidate for the party. You will bear the brunt if you make wrong choices that will send the party into opposition. Make no mistake during the primaries to elect just any candidate. I will use the little money I have for myself till I die and not spend on party members anymore,” the MP said.

    The outspoken lawmaker said this when he addressed NPP delegates in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.

  • I’m not desperate to become president but I wont accept vice – Kennedy Agyapong

    Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP) and flagbearer hopeful for the New Patriotic Party, Kennedy Agyapong has declared that he is not desperate to become president.

    The lawmaker who is into business and media has stressed that he will, however, not settle for a vice presidential slot if he fails to achieve the ultimate goal.

    He explained that mush as he wants to serve society through politics, he won’t function properly if he has a boss who doesn’t share his vision.

    “The truth is, I am not a politician who feels that without becoming president I will die. I have enough to live on and so I am here to serve but to want to serve with a vision and there is someone ahead of me who doesn’t share my vision, I prefer to stay away.

    “Because if I say this is what I have experienced and want to change and I have gone to the remotest part of India … where common sugarcane is being leveraged on to generate even electricity.

    “If I say we should use sugar and its extractives to generate electricity but if your president doesn’t share your vision and wants to suppress me with English, English, I won’t get that patience,” he told a gathering on his ongoing tour of the United States.

    He formally launched his flagbearership campaign over the weekend reemphasizing how he would turn around Ghana’s economy.

    He reiterated boosting mechanized agriculture and tourism as the main drivers of the economy if he realizes his dream of becoming president.

    With respect to tourism, Agyapong harped on the need to leverage on Ghana’s coastline to attract tourists especially with the castles and other monuments dotted along the coast.

    Agyapong is hoping to succeed president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as leader of the NPP going into the 2024 elections.

    Prominent names that have popped up in the race include: Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, and Agric Minister Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto – none of them have officially declared their intent.

    Kennedy Agyapong and former NPP General Secretary Kwabena Agyei Agyapong as well as one-time Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko, have publicly declared their intention to run for the position.

  • Stop behaving like a village chief, we are not your subjects – Martin Amidu ‘warns’ Bagbin

    Martin Amidu has taken on Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin over recent comments Bagbin made on the floor of Parliament relative to his experience in Parliamentary democracy.

    He accused the Speaker of behaving somewhat like a village chief who was treating Ghanaians and Members of Parliament like his subjects.

    The former Special Prosecutor also admonished Bagbin to stay off boasting about his credentials and to allow colleagues and others who have known him overtime to do so.

    Amidu’s views were contained in an epistle titled; ‘Games in Parliament – The Speaker and the Minority’s Motion of Censure.’

    It read in part: “Mr. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin needs to be told to stop talking down on Ghanaians as though he is a village chief and we, his subjects.

    “No humble, learned, erudite, and experienced person will ever seek to silence his critics in a constitutional democracy by telling them that: ‘In all humility, please note that there is deep thought in whatever I do. Don’t underrate my knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise in Parliamentary practice and procedure.’

    “It is for the public or one’s professional peer group, to determine one’s level of knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise and not for one to subjectively assert them and trumpet his competencies to the world,” the statement added.

    Amidu also pointed to Justice D. F. Annan, the first Speaker of the Fourth Republic, to emphasise how someone who has not been an MP distinguished himself as a Speaker.

    He charged Bagbin to take a lead from his predecessors and maintain his role as an umpire in the affairs of the House and stop acting like what he termed “a transactional member” of the House.

    “The conduct of Mr. Bagbin in the processes leading up to the passage of the 2022 Budget Statement and subsequent Appropriation Act, 2022 and the current motion of censure filed by the Minority Caucus of Parliament against the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta vindicate the assertion that Mr. Bagbin behaves more as a transactional Member of Parliament than the Speaker of Parliament as an umpire,” Martin Amidu argued.

  • ‘Honest’ Ken Agyapong will win NPP presidential primaries – A Plus projects

    Kwame Asare Obeng, alias A Plus, has projected that Assin Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong, will win the flagbearership race in the governing New Patriotic Party, NPP.

    In a September 26, 2022 Facebook post, A Plus cited the ‘honesty’ of the lawmaker as the main factor that has endeared him to the party’s rank and file.

    He was responding to the NPP’s claim that an attack on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, at a concert in Accra over the weekend was orchestrated by members of the opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC.

    He slammed the communication as lacking sense because there are NPP members on record who are unhappy with the way the country is being run.

    “Hon Kennedy Agyapong criticized the governments decision to go to IMF. Is he NDC? You see how popular he has become in the party? He is going to win your presidential primaries.

    “The people are tired of your outmoded and foolish communication style. They are looking for people who at least APPEAR honest. Not praise singers who defend every nonsense; that is why Hon Ken is winning. If you don’t see him winning then you don’t have any business being in politics,” his post read in part.

    He reemphasized his long held position that most of the NPP’s communicator were psychologically unfit for the role.

    “Your downfall is not NDC. It is your poor communication and “mad” communicators. 90% of your communicators are always one always a sentence away from the psychiatric hospital.”

    President Akufo-Addo was booed by a section of the crowd during a star-studded musical concert, the Global Citizen Festival, which took place at the Black Star Square on September 24, 2022.

    Chants of ‘away, away’ were heard when he appeared on stage to deliver a message. The president proceeded to deliver the over six-minute message.