The Lawra Youth Club is alarmed over what it described as mass auctioning of the already inadequate vehicles serving various departments in the Municipality without any concrete plan of replacing them.
In a demonstration of its anger, the Youth Club, led by its President, Mr Jeremiah B. S. Kpetaa impounded three of the auctioned vehicles that were on road to prevent them from moving out of the Municipality.
Departments and institutions affected by the auction include; the Lawra Municipal Education Directorate; the Lawra, Eremon and Brifoh Senior High Schools (SHSs), the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Lawra District Hospital.
Briefing the Ghana News Agency on the issue, Mr Kpetaa noted that the Municipal Electoral Officer had to pass through the challenge of walking round to conduct the District Level Elections as his vehicle was auctioned and taken away.
Again, President of the Lawra Youth Club noted that the Municipal Education Directorate had only two pick-ups of which one was broken down with one on road.
He said the vehicles were inadequate for the Directorate to be able to deliver on its daunting task, stressing that it was therefore unthinkable to auction both vehicles leaving the Directorate without any vehicle.
He said the Parents Teacher Association (PTA) of the Brifoh SHS was interested in buying the broken down pickup from the Directorate to maintain it for the use of the school, which presently had no single vehicle, but was denied the opportunity as they were auctioned to persons outside the Municipality.
He said at the Lawra SHS, two buses and a mummy-truck was auctioned, while another two pick-ups, a bus and a tractor belonging to the Eremon SHS was also auctioned.
Mr Kpetaa said the vehicles, some of which needed minor repairs were adequate to serve the needs of the schools, noting that auctioning them and leaving the schools with nothing would affect education delivery in the Municipality negatively.
“If they have new vehicles, they should come and add them to the old ones because most of the departments and institutions need more than just one vehicle”, he said.
He pointed out that the Youth Club was concerned about the development of the Municipality, knowing that vehicles played a key role in facilitating the needed development.
He said the Club consulted all stakeholders before arriving at the decision to impound some of the auctioned vehicles.
Mr Martin Bomba-ire Dometier, the Lawra Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) when contacted said he was aware about the auction, but said it was a national decision.
On the action of the Lawra Youth Club, the MCE said he was hesitant to comment because he was not fully briefed on the details.
GNA