The demonstrators
SCORES of Akyem Tafo residents in the East Akim municipality of the Eastern Region yesterday staged a massive demonstration in an effort to pressurize government to site the newly created Abuakwa North Municipal Assembly office at Tafo instead of Kukurantumi.
The organizers – the Tafo Youth Movement (TYM) led by the Akyem Tafo chief, Osabarima Adusei Peasah IV, as well as some 13 assembly members – appealed to the government to make New Tafo the capital in honour of the late MP, J.B. Danquah-Adu, who was murdered on February 9, 2016 at his Shiashie residence in Accra.
The demonstrators, clad in red and black dresses with red headgears and hand bands, carried several placards with inscriptions that expressed their resentment over the decision to make Kukurantumi the municipal capital instead of New Tafo.
The residents indicated that Akyem Tafo contributes a lot of revenue to the government and also has a number of infrastructures.
“Akyem Tafo is the most populated and developed, hence considering all these things, it is only prudent and legally right for the new municipality to have its headquarters at Akyem New Tafo,” Osabarima Adusei Peasah IV maintained.
The Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North, who doubles as the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Gifty Twum-Ampofo, was accused of masterminding the move to name Kukurantumi as the district capital.
Minister’s Reaction
But Ms Gifty Twum-Ampofo has refuted the allegation that she had lobbied for the capital of the newly created Abuakwa North Municipal Assembly to be sited at Kukurantumi.
“It’s the government’s decision to place municipal and district capitals at the constituency heads, hence the decision to site it at Kukurantumi. I was just called by the officials of Regional Integration to confirm my constituency head,” she said.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Akyem Tafo