Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia yesterday led a high-powered delegation to express condolences to the family of the late former Greater Accra Regional Minister, Ishmael Ashitey.
“We have lost a big tree in the NPP family and we are in mourning. We do not know what happened but God knows best. His ways are not ours,” Dr. Bawumia said.
He expressed gladness upon seeing the number of persons who turned up to mourn with the bereaved family. This, he said, showed the unity existing within the NPP family.
The former regional minister, he said, served the party well and that at the appropriate time he would be accorded a befitting funeral.
The Vice President was accompanied to the bereaved family’s house by Stanley Adjiri Blankson, Council of State member, Irene Naa Torshie Lartey, Administrator of the Common Fund, Greater Accra NPP Executives, MPs and MMDCEs.
The former regional minister who also served as the region’s Chairman of the NPP passed on last Friday at the International Maritime Hospital, Tema.
Sources state he died a week after his return from a medical trip to the United States.
News about his demise spread on social media in the form of unconfirmed tidbits until a confirmation from party sources.
The 68-year-old politician who endeared himself to the grassroots of the NPP was said to be lacing his boots to contest the national chairmanship of the ruling party when he took ill and eventually succumbed to death.
Born and bred in Tema where he had his basic education, he studied mechanical engineering at the Accra Polytechnic, now Accra Technical University, and later GIMPA where he obtained an Executive Masters degree in Governance and Leadership.
His CV has entries about his working life at the Tema Steel Works, Accra Brewery Limited in Ghana, Tecnofin Nederlands and General Establishment for Plastics & Industries, all in Libya.
His political career started in 1992 when he joined the NPP and eventually serving as Member of Parliament for Tema East having maintained the position from 1996 to 2008.
He served on various committees during his stint with Parliament; among them Mines and Energy, Foreign Affairs, Government’s Assurances and the House committees.
Under former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s tenure, he served as a Minister of State at the Ministries of Food and Agriculture and Trade, Industry & President’s Special Initiatives.
His tenure as the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the NPP saw the party sweeping most of the parliamentary seats, a feat which added to this political stature and leading to the party’s triumph.
The Presbyterian Church member died while serving as member of the ruling party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Council.
He is reported to have demanded of the party to unfold strategies to break the eight-year election cycle in the country in 2024. It was a remark which gave the ‘breaking the 8’ mantra a boost.
“NPP could be the first party under the 4th Republic to secure a third term mandate. But this will take leaders who will unite all fronts, apply unique strategies and abide strictly by the party’s constitution,” he said in July last year.
Continuing, he said, “I managed to take the party from nine parliamentary seats to 14 and subsequently to 21 seats when my mandate was renewed. I am pretty confident that I will be the person to break that jinx of eight years.”
News about his death and assortment of tributes are trending on NPP-leaning social media groups since the confirmation of his death last Friday.
Funeral arrangements will be announced later, DAILY GUIDE has learnt.
He left behind a wife and four children.
By A.R. Gomda