A Local Governance analyst, George Kyei Baffour has said the manhandling of a commercial driver by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) boss, Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, is an insult to the Mayor’s high office.
Kyei Baffour also said the Mayor’s actions “constitutes an embarrassment to his appointing authority;” the Presidency.
Alfred Vanderpuije has come under intense public criticism on several occasions for some unilateral decisions he has taken on national issues, including the renaming of the Theodosia Okoh Hockey Pitch to John Evans Attah Mills Hockey Pitch.
[contextly_sidebar id=”gxXKpk1jm58L1DW9FQRwmH8tjBfd17Fr”]A latest incident is a video of him manhandling and causing the arrest of a commercial driver for not participating in the National Clean up exercise and for honking at the cleaners on the street.
He was heard in the video describing the driver’s action as indiscipline, and caused his arrest.
Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Kyei Baffour chastised the Mayor for what he described as a needless act.
According to him, the National Sanitation Day had no legal obligation on Ghanaians, stressing, “the AMA Chief Executive has no business arresting anybody for not participating in a communal labour.”
He said Oko Vanderpuije should have exercised some circumspection in dealing with the person, after all, the Local Government Minster had “appealed to the conscience of the people” to take part in the exercise.
“The fact that he continued to ensure that the driver was handcuffed was so dramatic. And the kind of words he used, calling him nonsense and things like that I believe it was an affront to his dignity and status as the mayor of Accra”.
George Kyei Baffour has therefore called on the Assembly to initiate moves to bring the Mayor to order, because it also “has effects on the dignity of the Assembly”.
“I think that the man has the penchant for exercising arbitrary authority like the Theodosia Okoh Park, the High Street, the Sports Stadium and a host of things that he has done. I think that he ought to be careful and deal with issues in accordance with law” Kyei Barfuor said.
By: Eugenia Tenkorang/citifmonline.com/Ghana