DEPUTY MINISTER of Trade and Industry, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, last Thursday descended heavily on the Works Engineer of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) over a demolition exercise in his constituency.
Mr. Ahenkorah, Member of Parliament (MP) for Tema West, who arrived at one of the sites where the demolition was taking place in a charged mood, was said to have instructed some of his constituents and affected residents to stop the TMA taskforce from destroying their properties.
Not even armed navy and police officers present at the scene could stop the MP from hurling insults on the taskforce, the managers of the assembly and the security agencies.
The Metro Engineer who became threatened by the action of Mr. Ahenkorah, quickly jumped into the assembly’s Navara pick-up with registration number GN 7605-16 in an attempt to leave the scene, but Mr. Ahenkorah pursued him and knocked at the vehicle screaming, “Come out! Come out if you are man.”
But the timely intervention by some onlookers saved the Engineer from the hands of the deputy minister.
Upon realizing that the engineer would not stop, angry-looking Mr. Ahenkorah then confronted one of the navy officers and warned him, “Don’t follow these people to come here. I am the deputy minister and also the MP here. If the TMA boss calls you tell him I said don’t come here.”
The deputy minister’s alleged action, which occurred at Community 2, Tema in the Greater Accra Region, left most residents of the area in a state of shock, wondering why a member of a ruling party would be fighting his own government’s efforts at ensuring sanity in the municipality.
Meanwhile, information available to DAILY GUIDE indicates that that was not the first time such a confrontation had been made as the MP was alleged to have earlier stormed the office of the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Felix Mensah Annang-La, to castigate him over decongestion exercise in the constituency.
It was gathered that on three separate occasions, TMA had received a written request from the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) – on which board Mr. Ahenkorah is a member – asking the assembly to remove unauthorized structures in front of its (Cocobod’s) fence wall at Cocoa Village in Community 2.
The letter stated that the structures had become a nuisance and also hindering the progress of its construction work. It further highlighted the security threats occupants of the Village stand to face, as the structures could serve as hide-outs for criminals.
Mr Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La, in an interview condemned the attack on the TMA staff and the taskforce, saying, “The action of the MP was needless and wrong.”
He said although the assembly would face stiff opposition in its quest to restore Tema to its former beautiful status, his administration was prepared to see to it that the right thing was done.
Mr. Annang-La indicated that Mr. Ahenkorah was fully aware of the assembly’s decision to embark on the demolition exercise in the area. “We have had several consultative meetings with the MP, so I was surprised when I heard he had attacked the engineer,” he asserted.
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