<<Print>>

There is serious confusion within the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) over the political affiliations of its leaders.

The confusion according to sources is being created by some of the executives who have openly shown their affinity to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Information gathered indicates that former President and flagbearer of the opposition NDC, John Dramani Mahama has written to the leadership of GUTA of his intention of meeting with the executives to explain the content of his party’s manifesto.

Some of the GUTA executives, who have allegedly been behind the several confusions and divisions within the rank and file of the Association, have sneaked out to meet John Mahama at his campaign office.

The said group of GUTA executives who ignored the protocols governing GUTA operations and approval from the President, Dr. Joseph Obeng, held a secret meeting with John Mahama and his campaign team as against the collective decision of the entire leadership.

The meeting they had with John Mahama, according to sources within GUTA, does not reflect the interest of the entire Association and that whatever was discussed at that meeting with John Mahama was done in their own parochial interest.

Interesting revelations coming out from the latest development indicate that the group which had the secret meeting with John Mahama was the reason for the division between GUTA National and GUTA-Accra.

According to information, they were the reason for the sudden dissolution of the Greater Accra regional branch executive of the association leading to GUTA-Greater Accra finally decoupling itself from the mother Union to form the ‘Traders Advocacy Group Ghana (TAGG).’

This group of executives who are alleged to be in the good books of John Mahama have virtually turned the Association into a political arena, where they considered some of the members including the President Dr. Joseph Obeng as belonging to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), hence decided to meet the flagbearer of the NDC John Mahama without involving the others.

Meanwhile, some disgruntled members of the Association who saw the move by the few ‘NDC gangs’ as betrayal, said John Mahama shouldn’t have given the group audience.

“We have leaders, we have our President and we think in matters like this, our President should be part of that meeting. In any case, it was John Mahama who was to come to us and engage us on his Manifesto, because he wrote to us seeking an audience,” an executive member indicated.

It is however unclear as to which capacity these people met with John Mahama and what informed John Mahama’s decision to accept them, engage them, and presented to them his 2020 Manifesto.