Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah has told the media he has no problem with any chief in the region holding press conferences and demanding their due.
The constitution he says allows for such individual or class action so there is nothing amiss for the people to call for development in their locality when deprived.
The Minister made these comments when responding to a barrage of developmental issues confronting the Ashanti Region, the ‘World Bank electorally’ of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Residents in the region have been raising their voices including chiefs over the lack of development or the deliberate neglect in the region, the latest being the Mamponteng Hene, Barima Saasi Ayeboafo II.
The chief was not happy, Mampongten can neither boast of a single tarred road nor proper infrastructure in spite of its relevance in the geopolitics of the Ashanti region.
‘‘Kwabre East Constituency has no single tarred road, no public senior high school, Tvet, , STEM, not a single purpose hospital and abandoned market project’’
However responding to development in the area, the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, noted that
‘‘Kwabre East is a problem, what is wrong with the chief saying the truth, when someone is saying the truth what is bad about that ‘’
‘‘You see I believe there is no perfect human being on this earth, so I don’t try to be perfect, I try to satisfy the majority, the Kwabre East road is it a stomach sickness? It’s out there for all to see, they are bad. I can’t accuse Mamponteng Hene of holding a press conference to speak the truth, I rather have to have a solution to it’’
‘‘What I would have wished for, was for him to call me, and engage me as the rep of the president, I have these problems, so I could even advise on what we need to do to get the needed solution’’
‘‘I still do not have a problem with the way he went, it is his constitutional right, I won’t gag anybody in the region, the truth is I can’t satisfy everybody, even Jesus Christ could not satisfy all how much more me’’, he observed.
Ashantibiz
