Ayisi-Boateng's stay endorses lawlessness - Franklin Cudjoe

Founding President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, is demanding the dismissal of Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, George Ayisi-Boateng, indicating: “If he stays in office, he would have legitimised the perception that banditry pays”.

Mr Ayisi-Boateng had said that his priority as a government representative in South Africa is to serve the interest of members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) before any other Ghanaian.

Mr Cudjoe stated on his Facebook wall on Thursday, October 31 that the comments were extremely distasteful, especially as they were made by a “diplomatic representative of our respectable President, who left a dignified legacy when he was Ghana’s Foreign Minister”.

He emphasised: “Ghana's High Commissioner to South Africa has by his selective and divisive comments, reduced his high office into claptraps that were equally capable of lighting bonfires in townships under apartheid South Africa.”

Mr Ayisi-Boateng has received a lot of flak from a section of Ghanaians.

Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, also indicated that: “This man is not fit to be Ghana's representative in a foreign land. No. Not a dignified, respected and united country such as our motherland.”

For him, Mr Ayisi-Boateng is more of an “NPP representative in South Africa” and he hopes “Ghana will have a High Commissioner in South Africa soon”.

Following the comments by Mr Ayisi-Boateng, past leaders of the governing New Patriotic Party’s tertiary wing, TESCON, came out through a statement to praise him saying they are “proud” of him for saying NPP members are more Ghanaian than others, thus, he would make them his topmost priority before any other Ghanaian.

“We wish to state emphatically that we are very proud of you, H.E. Ayisi-Boateng, the High Commissioner to South Africa,” a statement signed by George Krobea Asante, former TESCON President GIMPA, Kumasi said.

But Mr Briamah is of the view that Mr Ayisi-Boateng “should be brought home and appointed chief patron of TESCON” instead, so that he can serve them better.