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DRAMA unfolded  at the offices of the Metropolitan Chief Executive Officer (MCE) for  Sekondi-Takoradi last week Friday, when a meeting attended by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party Chairmen and Women Organizers drawn from the five constituencies in the metropolis, turned into vitriolic attacks and snatching away of party funds.

The meeting, called at the instance of the MCE, Madam Charlotte Odoom was to discuss with the party executives how to disburse GH10,000 to women groups engaged in petty trading in the five constituencies in the metropolis. The constituencies are –Essikado-Ketan, Sekondi, Takoradi, Effia and Kwesimintsim. Each constituency was entitled to GHC2,000.

According to The Chronicle sources, the parties agreed that the MCE would hand over the money to the Women Organizers who would in turn register the petty traders and disburse the funds to them. The idea is to maximize votes from the Women Organizers. This reporter gathered that the disbursement of the funds to the Women Organizers went on smoothly, until it got to the turn of Takoradi.

The constituency chairman, Illiasu Alhassan, who had only been invited to observe the disbursement, allegedly jumped from his seat and snatched the money from the hands of the MCE, as the latter was making the attempt to hand over the money to the constituency Women Organizer,  Madam Emma Insaidoe.

Illiasu Alhassan, after seizing the money, reportedly took to his heels, with his Women Organizer also chasing him (Illiasu) on the corridors of the metropolitan assembly to collect the money back. The hot chase and the accompanying noise, The Chronicle was told, attracted the attention of the workers of the assembly, who hitherto did not know that there was even a meeting of that sort going on in the MCE’s office.

Unfortunately, Madam Emma Insaidoe could not grab the run-away NDC Chairman to collect the money.
She, therefore, resorted to invocation of curses on her boss. The Women Organizer, according to information, is at loggerheads with her Chairman, which has resulted in a division that has emerged in the Takoradi constituency of the party.

The Women Organizer is reportedly in the camp of the Deputy Regional Minister, Alfred Ekow Gyan, who is not in the good books of Illiasu Alhassan, the constituency Chairman. Information gathered by this reporter indicate that Madam Emma Insaidoe, after being denied access to the money by her Chairman, went straight to the office of her boss (Deputy Regional Minister) to report  the conduct of the Chairman to him (Deputy Minister).

Unfortunately, the latter could not do anything about the situation. The Takoradi constituency Women Organizer confirmed via telephone interview that indeed her Chairman snatched the money from the hands of the MCE, as the latter was about to hand over the cash to her. According to her, she could not believe the conduct of her chairman because the money was meant for Women Organizers.

To her, she gave her Chairman a hot chase, when he bolted away with the money, but could not catch him to collect the money. Chairman Illiasu Alhassan, though confirmed attending the meeting, denied that he snatched the money meant for his Woman Organizer from the hands of the MCE. According to him, he took possession of the money because he did not trust his Women Organizer to honestly disburse the funds to the intended recipients.

“As I speak to you now, I have begun disbursing the monies to the petty traders,” he said.  But another constituency Chairman who was at the said meeting and did not want to be named, told this reporter that, the money was meant for the Women Organizers and not Chairmen and that, they were only invited to the meeting to observe the handing over of the money to their Women Organizers.