DON'T ALLOW POLITICIANS TO ENTICE YOU WITH MONEY (PAGE 17)

THE Omanhene of the New Juaben Traditional Area, Daasebre Oti Boateng, has advised Ghanaians not to allow political leaders to influence them with financial or material offers.
He said they should rather consider the competent and experienced politicians who were prepared to place the interest of the state above that of their own.
The Omanhene made these remarks during a courtesy call on him by the Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Mr Isaac Osei, and other top executives of the various units under COCOBOD, at his palace in Koforidua.
“Voting according to our conscience will ensure that only competent, tried and tested politicians are placed in positions of influence to seek our common interest and not their selfish individual interests,” Daasebre Oti Boateng said.
The New Juaben Omanhene said politicians aspiring for positions should have a prime focus to serve the interest of the people who reposed their confidence in them to represent their interest in Parliament.
He said anything short of that could seriously undermine not only the people’s confidence in politicians but also set a bad precedent for the country’s democratic dispensation, whereby only the rich could grab power at the expense of the poor but competent aspirants.
“If politicians offer the people money and material gains to influence their conscience during elections, that is a breach of the rule and laws of fundamental principles of democracy,” Daasebre Oti Boateng stated
“We should not tolerate such corrupt practices on a blatant scale, since such tendency could undermine democratic structures and systems,” he said, adding that due to lack of resources, many competent and committed aspiring politicians were being denied the opportunity to serve the country.
To this end, he reminded politicians that since Ghanaians were now awaken to their rights and interests, it was high time selfish politicians gave priority to the interest of the people to ensure success in their political ambitions.
“The yardstick for measuring the success of any political leader is his or her ability to place the interest of the people above that of his or her personal interest and is ever prepared to pursue such objective,” Daasebre Oti Boateng added.
The Omanhene commended Mr Osei for his election as the New Patriotic Party parliamentary candidate for the Subin Constituency in the Ashanti Region, noting that it was under his quality leadership and the support of stakeholders that the country had in the past years witnessed significant increases in cocoa production.
This, he noted, had enabled the country to earn more foreign exchange from the commodity on the international market to undertake various development projects, as well as pay double bonuses to cocoa farmers.
For his part, Mr Osei expressed his commitment to continue with policies and incentives to enhance cocoa production in the country and to enhance living standards of cocoa farmers.