Ejisu-Juabeng Municipal Chief Executive, Afrifa Yamoah-Ponko, has issued a half hearted apology for locking up a newly built school block.
The MCE last week locked up the Edwinase Primary School just because it had not been commissioned at the time.
The facility was opened for use on the orders of former assemblyman for the area, Richmond Frimpong before it was officially handed over to the assembly by the contractor.
That got Yamoah Ponkoh angry. Last week Friday, the pupils of Edwinase Primary School were thrown out from the newly built four-unit classroom block.
The pupils, mainly kindergarten and nursery crèche pupils were forced to go home that day and return the following week to continue classes under trees.
He told Joy News’ Joseph Opoku Gakpo : we locked it up because we have not as yet completed the formalities. There are laid down procedures and principles to be followed. So I cannot sit down here for people to take the laws into their own hands and do their own political work and get away with it.
‘They have been learning under trees since the NPP was in charge of affairs of the country, now John Mahama comes in to put up a structure for you, and you don’t take your time, you don’t exercise restraint?” he said.
But on Thursday, Mr. Yamoah-Ponko officially used the official commissioning of the school block to apologize to the children, their teachers and the community.
‘I sounded apologetic and I don’t have any regrets for that. I have to seize that opportunity to apologize to them for the action taken by my very self. I did that because of the intransigence of the former assemblyman over there’. Mr Yamoah-Ponko defended his action.
He told Nhyira News in an interview his earlier action was to follow procedure and not to embarrass users of the facility.
‘When contract is awarded, after completion, he [contractor] has to write formally to the assembly for an inspection to be undertaken before any further action could be undertaken. And in the case of this, none of these was followed. All what I heard was that former assemblyman has gone in there to open the facility for use which is improper’. Yamoah-Ponko explained.
Meanwhile, Mr. Yamoah-Ponko has promised a new classroom block to replace an abandoned dilapidated structure for Boankra Methodist Primary School after commissioning a 4-unit classroom block for the school on Thursday.
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