STORY BY: Nicholas Osei Wusu
Tension is mounting over the the eligibility of delegates from the Tertiary Education Schools Confederacy, TESCON at the ongoing New patriotic Party, NPP Ashanti regional delegates Conference in Kumasi.
Originally, 63 of the student NPP representatives from the various recognized tertiary institutions in the region had been accredited to vote at the elections.
But, upon the start of an agitation by some of the Aspirants to a halt of the voting process necessitating the disqualification of five of the delegates from some of the schools to bring down the number to 58.
This decision of the Regional Elections Committee was openly communicated to the Conference by the Chairman, Mr. Simon Osei Mensah hoping tempers would cool.
However, that did not achieve the desired result as all the aspirants except the incumbent Regional Chairman who is still contesting to retain his post, Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako, also called Chairman Wontumi stood his grounds that the TESCON delegates must vote.
His stance was supported vehemently by the Regional Youth Organizer, Denis Kwakwa who has a supervisory responsibility over TESCON activities.
He also threatened that, ‘they will either vote or the elections would be rescheduled’.
During a consultation with the aspirants in the heat of the agitations, the Elections Committee Chairman, Mr. Osei Mensah, appealed for calm but the Aspirants refused to change their stance on the matter.
The MP for Bantama and Minister for Works and Housing, Mr. Francis Asenso Boakye, who claims to have created the TESCON as an organ of the NPP told the parties to disallow the TESCON delegates from voting so as to calm down tempers for the process to end peacefully and successfully.
As at the time of filing this report, Mr. Osei Mensah was still consulting to bring finality to the impasse.
