The Member of Parliament for the Kwadaso Constituency, Dr. Kingsley Nyarko, has expressed concern about the dearth of information on the status of the Astro Turf which is supposed to have been constructed by the Middle Belt Development Authority for the people of the Kwadaso constituency in the Ashanti region.
Though the Member of Parliament has made several attempts to get information on the said project which was captured as part of the deliverables for the Authority in the year 2021, his efforts has been met with stiff opposition from some elements within the Middle Belt Authority who are scheming to appropriate projects of the Authority as personally initiated projects in order to gain political advantage in the constituency.
One of these persons who is behind this grand scheme is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Middle Belt Authority, Mr. Vincent Frimpong Manu, who has been eyeing the Parliamentary seat in the area for some time now. It is an open secret that Mr. Manu has been contesting the NPP parliamentary primaries in the constituency and has lost twice to the incumbent MP, Dr. Kingsley Nyarko.
He is behind several clandestine schemes and deliberate machinations to use his position as the Deputy C.E.O. of the Middle Belt Authority to undermine the Member of Parliament and to sabotage developmental projects assigned to the constituency for fear that it would be deemed as projects initiated and completed under the tenure of the current MP.
A Parliamentary question filed by the Member of Parliament for the area to know about the status of the Astro Turf in the Beposo Cluster of Schools in the Kwadaso constituency, hit a snag as the Minister in Charge of Youth and Sports, Mustafa Yusif, could not provide any useful information on the project.
Answering the question on the Floor of Parliament on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, the Youth and Sports Minister confirmed that, “Indeed, the facility is being constructed by the Middle Belt Development Authority.
Even though he admitted that his Ministry has keen interest in the construction of the Astro Turf because it is consistent with their mandate, he could not help but refer the MP to the authorities of the Middle Belt for answers.
Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament had already written letters to the Authority since January of this year and has also followed to their offices without getting access to any useful information about the status of the project which has been claimed to have been awarded for contract in 2019 and re-awarded in 2021 for lack of performance.
Dr. Kingsley Nyarko had only wanted to know the status of the project; the contractor; the contract amount; the scope of the project; and the timelines so that he could use his good office as the MP of the constituency to monitor the project and to offer the needed assistance for its successful completion since it will help discover the talents of the youth and boost sporting activities in the constituency.
Rather, the MP’s efforts have met serious opposition from the Deputy CEO, Mr. Vincent Frimpong Owusu who is bent on using clandestine moves to concoct stories about the MP to create bad blood between him and the constituents.
He has recently Mastermind an article published under the title: KINGSLEY NYARKO – THE MP WHO FIGHTS AGAINST DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN HIS OWN CONSTITUENCY, which attacked Dr. Kingsley Nyarko for seeking to leverage on his oversight role as a Member of Parliament to file a question to get information on the project for his constituents.
For its dubious propaganda value and desperation, the said published article erroneously referred to the Astro Turf Project by the Middle Belt Development Authority as an initiative by the Deputy CEO, Vincent Frimpong Manu who is claiming ownership of the project for political expediency.
The article further claimed that the Deputy CEO was the one who created the concept for the project and that he has all the information on the project would provide it to the Minister for Youth and Sports to be delivered in Parliament for the MP to be ashamed. Yet, the information never got to the Minister for him to inform the good people of Kwadaso about the status of that project.
Aside the Astro Turf being provided by the Middle Belt Authority for the people of Kwadaso, Dr. Kingsley Nyarko has been pursuing some initiatives on his own to provide an Astro turf in the constituency in addition to the many developmental projects he has already delivered for his people. He has written to some companies on this project who have given positive feedback for support.
However, the Member of Parliament will not relent on getting the information on the status of the Middle Belt Development Authority’s Astro Turf designated for the people of Kwadaso until it is constructed for the benefit of the teeming youth in the constituency.