Vetting of Kennedy Kankam and Suame MCE in limbo

In order to prevent Maxwell Ofosu Boakye, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Suame, from running in the upcoming 27 January 2024 parliamentary primaries in the constituency, two members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region’s Suame constituency have petitioned the party’s parliamentary vetting body.

The National Council of the NPP, in a decision dated July 24, 2023, on the conduct of the party’s internal parliamentary and presidential primaries, states that Metropolitan, Municipal, District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in constituencies where the party has sitting members of Parliament are ineligible to run in the parliamentary primaries for those constituencies. This is essentially what Ahmed Seid and Bright Osei Agyemang point out in a fifteen-page petition to the vetting committee.

In order to achieve this, the petitioners stated in their plea that Maxwell Ofosu Boakye should be barred from running in the party’s Suame constituency primaries as long as he holds the position of MCE of Suame.

“As of the time of writing this petition, Maxwell Ofosu Boakye is the Municipal Chief Executive of the Suame Municipality. Mr. Maxwell Ofosu Boakye has not resigned from his position as the MCE of Suame, yet this gentleman has gone ahead to file his nomination forms to contest the Suame seat in clear violation of all the rules, regulations, orders, and decisions of NEC and NC.

“It is reiterated for the benefit of your committee that the rules outlined by the party to govern the conduct of the Parliamentary primaries in the Constituencies with sitting MPs do not admit of any other interpretation, therefore they must be interpreted strictly to meet the needs of the said directives” the petitioners stated in their petition.

“Accordingly, the current Suame MCE, per the rules and regulations stated above should have resigned from his position on or before the 20 September 2023. Having refused to resign, he is estopped from contesting the Suame parliamentary primaries.

In a related development, Kennedy Kankam, the MCE for Asokore Mampong, claimed during his vetting that the NEC had granted him special permission to run in the party’s Nhyiaeso constituency primaries despite the fact that he is a serving MCE. For this reason, the NPP’s parliamentary vetting committee has referred Mr. Kankam’s vetting to the party’s National Executive Committee for clarification.

Former Member of Parliament for the Nhyiaeso constituency, Mr. Kankam, is attempting to make a run at unseating his primary opponent, Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Stephen Amoah. Mr. Amoah assumed the position in 2020 after defeating Mr. Kankam in the primaries before the elections in December 2020.

In an interview with media, the vetting committee’s chairman, Gary Nimako Marfo, noted that Kennedy Kankam’s assertion that he has a special dispensation is not consistent with the committee’s terms of reference. As a result, the committee has chosen to approve the first two candidates in the constituency while it awaits the NEC’s recommendation regarding Kankam’s eligibility.

Mr. Nimako Marfo went on to say that since Mr. Kennedy Kankam did not participate in the voting that followed the vetting on Wednesday, January 3, 2024, any attempts to imply that the vetting committee has cleared him to run in the primaries on January 27 are untrue.

Source: Ghanatodayonline.com