NPP members angry over 'snatched' toilet businesses

Minister of Local Government, Joseph Yiele Chireh Some members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis have expressed displeasure Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) for suspending their operation of public toilets. They claimed to have registered with the assembly and obtained the appropriate business permit/license renewable during the entire duration of the franchise agreement and wondered why the assembly could suddenly write to suspend a contract which had not expired. Brandishing copies of their ‘Suspension of Contract’ letters when the 23 public toilet operators stormed the Takoradi office of DAILY GUIDE last Friday afternoon, they unanimously said the whole saga was politically-motivated. In a letter dated 28th July 2009, signed by Alex Asamoah-Nyarko, Deputy Metropolitan Coordinating Director of the STMA, it stated that the assembly had observed some anomalies in the agreement signed with the contractors and needed to review it. It added that the franchise agreement signed with the toilet operators was to be suspended with effect from 10th August 2009 and that the assembly would resume management of the public toilets after that date. The spokesman for the group, Samuel Eshun, professed that when NPP was in power, it did not abrogate the contract of members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who operated similar toilets, but the ruling government had singled out NPP members in the metropolis and served them with the suspension letters. Mr. Eshun wondered why President Mills, who promised to be “President for all Ghanaians”, could look on unconcerned while such unfair treatment is meted out to Ghanaians who had committed no crime. As indicated by the spokesman of the group, most of their contracts would expire in 2011, at which time the assembly could decide to renew or abrogate them, but for the assembly to merely suspend and review the contract was mind boggling and smacks of wanting to eliminate the NPP members from manning any of the public toilets in the metropolis. He added that if the assembly had nothing against them, they would have held at least a meeting with the public toilet operators to exchange ideas on issues, but the ‘suspension of contract’ letters only came out of the blue, which presupposes that some NDC operatives were directly behind the decision. When contacted by DAILY GUIDE, Clement Dandori, the Metropolitan Coordinating Director of STMA said, the assembly decided to take a holistic and critical look at the contract agreement following complaints from all sorts of people. He said the assembly wrote to all operators of the public toilets in the metropolis to submit their agreements and other documents for examination and that the exercise was to be executed by an independent Interim Committee which had no political intentions. Mr. Dandori asked all public toilet operators to respect the decision of the assembly and be patient till the end of the exercise, then any aggrieved person or persons could contact the Appeals Committee or even take legal action against the assembly. Source: Daily Guide