Ablakwa Leads ‘Hands Off SSNIT Hotels’ Demo Today

The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, is expected to lead a demonstration christenned, ‘Hands Off Our Hotels’ to protest the sale of a 60% stake in six hotels owned by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) today Tuesday, June 18, 2024.

Mr Ablakwa belives that selling state properties to government officials is an abuse of power.

Spealing ahead of today’s demonstration, Mr Ablakwa indicated that a key demand in the protesters petition to President Akufo-Addo is for him to immediately halt the sale of the hotels to Minister for Agriculture and Mmember of Parliament for Abetifi, Bryan Acheampong.

“We insist that President Akufo-Addo must immediately stop the sale of our SSNIT hotels. We want an immediate declaration from the president because since we started, all he has done is tell Organised Labour to go and meet the Employment Minister at which meeting, Organised Labour told us that they tried to convince them to allow the sale, so clearly, the president and his appointees don’t want to stop the sale, and we are going to insist that they back out.

“We are also demanding that state assets should no longer be sold, particularly the profitable ones.”

The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a press release has pledged its full support to today’s demonstration.

A statement dated Monday, June 17 and signed by the Minority Chief Whip, Kwame Agbodza said the support is to kick against the “Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government’s shady sale of state-owned hotels to the Minister of Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong.

Members of Organised labour are also expected to join the deminstration as Public Relations Officer of the Trades Union Congress, Naa Ayele Ardayfio Sekyere declared support for the protest urging public officials to stay off the hotels.

“This is a national call and it is exciting that our MPs are leading this. Let’s look at it how is it that every now and again, we have issues with SSNIT? You can’t do the same thing for so many times and expect different results, we are just not making progress as far as SSNIT is concerned.

“This is a national call for us, and we must all be interested because I don’t want to work for over 40 years and go on retirement as a pauper so this is a call for all of us. Not just Hands Off Our Hotels but all those lands that are being sold.”

The North Tongu lawmaker has already petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) against the sale to the Agriculture minister.

By: Christian Kpesese