Dr. Grace Ayensu Danquah
The Western Regional Communications team of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is demanding an unqualified apology from the NDC Parliamentary Candidate for Essikado-Ketan, Dr. Grace Ayensu Danquah, for making ‘distasteful’ comments about them.
According to them, the NDC candidate who is a member of the NDC national COVID-19 team has described them as people who are paid by the NPP ‘to speak anyhow’.
The NDC candidate allegedly made the unsavoury comments on Takoradi-based FOX FM on Monday while discussing the COVID-19 pandemic.
She claimed the NPP government had not been able to purchase a ventilator for any of the health facilities in the region, particularly for the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Sekondi, to help deal with the pandemic.
The following day, a member of the NPP regional communications team, William Manful-Sam, also stated on Takoradi-based Kyzz FM that the NDC candidate had always tried to give a partisan twist to discussions on the coronavirus disease.
He said that what the NDC candidate said was an admission that the NDC government under Mr. John Mahama could not purchase a ventilator for the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Sekondi when they were in power for eight years.
He indicated that Dr. Ayensu Danquah was polite on issues on radio “but after she was made a member of the NDC COVID-19 team and came back from Accra, she started doing politics with the pandemic whenever she spoke on radio.”
The NDC candidate who was also listening to the programme called in and explained that she never said former John Mahama did nothing to improve Effia-Nkwanta and other hospitals in the region.
She then went ahead to say “the NPP communicators are paid by the party to talk by-heart on radio.”
The NPP communication team members, who felt insulted by the statement, stormed Kyzz FM in their numbers on Wednesday.
They called on the Essikado-Ketan NDC candidate to retract the statement and apologize to them or else they would expose her.
Rex Jonfiah, acting Western Regional Communications Director, implored the NDC candidate to render an unqualified apology to the NPP communicators for insulting their intelligence.
“The NDC was in government for eight years, so if you say they should blame the NPP for not purchasing ventilators for the health facilities in the region, then she should also blame her party and not to insult,” he said.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi