It has finally emerged that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) bussed its supporters from all the 275 constituencies in the country to its campaign launch in Cape Coast, the Central Regional capital, at the weekend.
The impression had been created as though all the party supporters who converged on the Cape Coast Sports Stadium, where the event was held, travelled there on their own volition.
This position was reinforced by Communications Minister, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, yesterday when he spoke on Asempa FM’s afternoon political programme.
But documents cited by DAILY GUIDE indicate that the party indeed took buses from the state-owned Metro Mass Transit (MMT) Limited to convey the supporters there without paying a dime.
A copy of a Memorandum written and signed by the Assistant Traffic Operations Manager (ATOM) of MMT, who is in-charge of Hiring and Special Services, Mustapha Jumah, dated August 11, 2016 under the headline, ‘National Hiring Service to Depot Managers,’ and copies sent to the Traffic Operations Manager, directed that buses should be released to the NDC.
“Kindly release buses to the National Democratic Congress as per the attached schedule to convey people from their various constituencies to Cape Coast on August 13, 2016 and return on August 14, 2016.”
Even though the campaign launch was a political programme, the Assistant Traffic Operations Manager described the event as a ‘national assignment.’
Interestingly, however, the party failed to make payment for the buses, deferring payment to a later day as indicated in the Memo which stated, “This is a national assignment and the service will be paid later.”
Attached to the Memo was a list of party coordinators in the various regions with their telephone numbers for the Depot Manager to call and locations where the buses would pick the party foot-soldiers for the event.
It is believed that each of the 275 constituencies was assigned at least an MMT bus.
Considering the fact that the request for the buses was coming from the ruling government, the Metro Mass boss issued strict instructions to all the Depot Managers to “endeavour to perform the service without fail.”
Even though the new Cape Coast stadium has 15,000 seating capacity, the NDC claims that 60,000 supporters were there to witness the event.
Source: GhanaWeb
