While Ablakwa, others lobbied me for projects, U/E MPs didn’t care – Fmr Energy Ministry Chief Director

A former Chief Director at the Ministry of Energy,  Mr Lawrence Apaalse has called out Members of Parliament(MPs) from the Upper East Region for failing to take advantage of his presence at the Ministry as Chief Director to lobby for projects that other MPs from other parts of the country were lobbying for.

He lamented that while MPs like Samuel Okudzeto and Samuel George of the North Tongu and Ningo-Prampram Constituencies and some Upper West MPs frequented his office to lobby for streetlighting projects for their constituents, not even one out of the fifteen MPs from the Upper East Region, where he hails from, came to see him on possible projects for the region.

Mr Apaalse, a Geologist and Explorationist, who had worked for decades with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation(GNPC), berated the MPs for their seemingly lackadaisical attitude in lobbying for projects, especially when he was in office.

“When I was Chief Director at the Ministry of Energy, Prampram MP, Ablakwa and MPs from Upper West, they were coming to me asking for lights. You ask our MPs here, did one MP visit me in my office and say ‘I want lights for Tongo’. Not even one. Not even my own Bongo MP came to my office and was signing,” he lamented in an interview with Bolgatanga-based Dreamz FM after the commissioning of a footbridge constructed by him for the residents Zorko-Gamborongo in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region.

Mr Apaalse has been key in providing some notable lighting projects in the  Upper East Region. He is currently a Commissioner on the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) at the United Nations.