The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) must investigate the allegation of vote-buying in the just-ended delegates conference of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) made by a failed aspirant, Stephen Asamoah Boateng (Asabee), Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Murtala Mohammed, has said.
Asabee who was vying for the National Chairman position alleged during the polls that the eventual winner, Stephen Ntim influenced the delegates with money.
“[Ntim] is buying the votes,” he claimed.
“I got a message from a known person, Ntim sent him ¢500 and added another ¢500. I only gave them T&T,” he alleged to journalists during the polls at the Accra sports stadium on Saturday July 16.
Contributing to a discussion on this matter on TV3’s New day show with Johnnie Hughes on Tuesday, July 19, Murtala Mohammed said Asabee and the other accused officers must be investigated to ascertain where they got the money from to engage in this gesture.
“Moneys were expend in a level that people expected that under the prevailing unacceptable economic circumstances that you have subjected the people of this country to, you would have done everything possible to avoid that.
“It is very clear that even Asamoah Boateng who made the allegation, he himself said he paid for transportation of people to come. If you look at the total number it means that he might have paid millions of Ghana cedis. I think that the Special Prosecutor should be interested in this, whether taxes were paid. How did he get the money.
“The last time I checked he had been a member of Parliament and he had been a minister of state , I don’t know what he engages in that could afford him that money to pay. and he wasn’t the only who made those payments.”