DCE RUN RIOT*Employs macho men to harass assembly members

The decision by some Assembly members in the Atwima Nwabiagya District to pass a vote of no confidence in their District Chief Executive (DCE), Nana Asare Bediako, has infuriated the DCE.

That intended move by the assembly members, which did not go down well with Nana Asare Bediako, the paper understands, compelled the latter to contract heavily-built men [Macho men] to harass the opposing assembly members.Reports last week Friday indicate that several macho men believed to be contracted by the DCE thronged the Atwima Nwabiagya District Assembly at Nkawie in Ashanti Region threatening to deal ruthlessly with any assembly member who dared set foot at the assembly.The macho men, according to the report, were given a firm instruction to ‘discipline’ any assembly member ‘whether government appointee or of the opposition NPP’ who dared came to the assembly for any meeting.

Meanwhile Today has uncovered from investigations that Nana Asare Bediako who tried albeit unsuccessfully to woo some of the assembly members to rise up against attempts to remove him from office, is resorting to the brutish action to save himself the embarrassment of being thrown out of office. And as his predicament grew worse, the beleaguered smooth-talking DCE, according to sources, resorted to a Plan B, which was to contract the services of macho men to harass the assembly members who pitched camp against him.“…His [Nana Asare Bediako] Plan B was what saw him employing macho men to harass the assembly members who threaten to pass a vote of no confidence in him,” the source disclosed.

The news of the fiercely-looking macho men as they chanted war songs, Today was told, scared the assembly members many of whom decided to not attend any assembly meeting on the said day. The DCE’s reason, Today sources at the assembly disclosed, was as a result of the announced emergency meeting by government appointees in the assembly which he thought was an avenue for his own ‘housemen’ to plan to pass a vote of no confidence.The paper further gathered that some government appointees within the assembly have been appalled by what they described as the “unruly attitude” of the DCE and have since planned for his removal from office secretly.

It will be recalled that Today in its Tuesday, October 11, 2011 edition reported that the presiding member of Atwima Nwabiagya District who is a government appointee had received a letter from one-third of members of the house calling on him to convene an emergency meeting for them to pass a vote of no confidence in their DCE. The members claimed the DCE was fond of taking unilateral decisions without recourse to laid- down district assembly proceedings as enshrined in the Local Government Act.“How can a DCE we are working with take decisions on his own as if he is with his children. Even in his house does he not confer with his wife before taking decisions which he thinks will help the family?, some of the assembly members quizzed Meanwhile having failed to sweet-talk the assembly members into rescinding their decision to pass a vote of no confidence in him, the DCE has now called on the Ashanti regional chairman of the NDC to intervene on his behalf.