NPP primaries: Suame MCE faces disqualification; vetting of Kennedy Kankam on hold

Two members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Suame in the Ashanti Region have petitioned the party’s parliamentary vetting to disqualify the municipal chief executive (MCE) of Suame, Maxwell Ofosu Boakye, from running in the 27 January 2024 parliamentary primaries in the constituency.

In a 15-page petition to the vetting committee, Ahmed Seid and Bright Osei Agyemang, essentially point out that in line with the decision of the National Council of the NPP on the conduct of the party’s internal parliamentary and presidential primaries dated 24 July 2023, metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) in constituencies where the party has sitting MPs are not eligible to contest in the parliamentary primaries for those constituencies.

To this end, the petitioners noted that given that Maxwell Ofosu Boakye remains in office as the MCE of Suame, he ought to be disqualified from standing in the party’s primaries in the 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 petition states.

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

“[To] all intents and purposes, if the framers (NEC and NC) of the rules and regulations governing the primaries wanted the national officers, regional officers, party constituency executives and MMDCEs to contest the primaries where the sitting Members of Parliament may not contest for their seats again, they would have made a provision for that purpose,” the petition further says.

Kennedy Kankam

In a related development, the NPP’s parliamentary vetting committee has referred the vetting of Kennedy Kankam, the MCE for Asokore Mampong, to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party for clarification over claims by Kankam during his vetting that he has been given a special dispensation by the NEC to contest in the party’s Nhyiaeso primaries even though he is a serving MCE.

Kankam, a former MP for Nhyiaeso, wants to stage a comeback to unseat his main contender, the deputy trade and industry minister Stephen Amoah, who took over the seat in 2020 after beating Kankam in the primaries ahead of the December 2020 elections.

In an interview with Asaase News, the chairman of the vetting committee, Gary Nimako Marfo, argued that Kankam’s claim that he has been given a special dispensation is inconsistent with the vetting committee’s terms of reference and so the committee has decided to give clearance to the first two contenders in the constituency, pending the NEC’s advice about Kennedy Kankam’s eligibility.

Nimako Marfo further said that attempts to suggest that the vetting committee has cleared Kankam to contest the 27 January primaries are false, because he did not take part in the balloting that took place after the vetting on Wednesday, 3 January 2024.

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