Scores of contractors and businessmen who are kingpins of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Northern Region are in rages over what they described as “failed and empty promises” made to them by the Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed.
According to the angry contractors and businessmen, Mr. Saeed promised his outfit would award ‘big contracts’ to them in order to strengthen their financial base but they were shocked at Mr. Saeed’s made U-turn when he stated openly that he “will give businesses and contracts to some few people in the region who can do contracts and make money to take care of the teeming youth in the region irrespective of their political coloration.”
They accused Mr. Saeed of promising to give the contracts in the region to members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) who were his close associates.
Mr. Saeed’s statements have been condemned by the contractors and businessmen, since according to them the embattled minister made the promise of awarding big contracts to them after he allegedly succeeded in taking huge goodies from them.
The worrying move, according contractors and businessmen has heightened tension between them and the minister and called on the national leadership of the NPP to set up committee of enquiry to investigate the allegation against the minister.
The Contractors said “We are angry because we did do not understand why Mr. Salifu Saeed is telling us (contractors and businessmen) after taken some goodies from us that some senior ministers of the state had asked him to give them some of the contracts of the region which are to be given us as promised by the minister.
They continued: “…Mr Salifu Saeed told us that Minister of Finance and Economic Planning has asked him to give him five (5) lots of the contracts, whiles other sector ministers are also taking five (5) slots of the contracts. The slots are the real technical term used in awarding the contracts within the state institutions. So this is a situation which is making it difficult for us,” contractors and businessmen explained.
They disclosed that each of them paid the goodies to the minister himself and dared him to submit himself to public scrutiny should he denied that they had not been paid goodies for awarding contracts.
They revealed that the minister took what they said were goodies from them upfront before he personally assured them of contracts but could not comprehend why “these deals were struck out by the minister himself.”
According to them, their checks had showed that the minister had failed to redeem his promise as a result of the minister’s huge indebtedness to some ministers of the state and owners of some micro finances who were currently chasing him out for their monies.
However, attempts by this paper to get Mr. Saeed to comment on the allegations proved futile as calls and text messages placed to his 020… went unanswered.
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