Okraku-Mantey receiving the forms from the party secretary
Ahead of the 2024 general elections, the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mark Okraku-Mantey has picked his nomination forms in a bid to take over the Ayensuano parliamentary seat in the Eastern Region.
He is expected to contest for the Ayensuano parliamentary seat on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
After picking up the forms last Friday, he explained that, “It has a lot to do with leadership. The people we know can influence how we can also develop ourselves and other people, especially in education. If we get the majority of our people educated, the people will end up developing the environment themselves and so, knowing where I am now as the Deputy Minister, the people I know in the business fraternity before I became a minister, and the world at large, if I put all my resources together, I can help make Ayensuano a better place. I can help with capacity building, human resources, and then development. So, I’m here to help build the people who made me who I am today.”
He added that, “As Deputy Minister, I have also seen opportunities with ecotourism and so, we are going to get investors to come back here and build something like Aburi Botanical Garden.”
“We are focused and we just have to ensure we don’t say words that will infringe on the rights of individuals, so, we are bringing everybody together and the ultimate goal is to take the seat from the NDC,” he stated.
“When it comes to the youth, I’m not sure anybody can drive the youth more than me as an entertainer, so I’m going to use that to drive the youth to come together and fight for the seat. This is a traditional NPP seat, we just need to make a little effort and with leadership from the top and the people from the grassroot, if we believe in ourselves that we are going to do it, why not, leadership can make it happen,” he concluded.
The Ayensuano parliamentary seat was snatched from the ruling NPP by the opposition National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Teddy Safori Addi.
The current NDC MP defeated then-incumbent, Samuel Ayeh Paye in the 2020 parliamentary elections.
The founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Slip Mark Entertainment, admitted that apathy and complacency affected the party in the constituency, hence the loss of the seat by the NPP.
He has promised to unify the party at the grassroots level to win the seat.
He thus urged the party members to work tirelessly devoid of parochial interests to build the party to help ‘Break the 8’.
BY Daniel Bampoe