With NPP in majority, I'm happy not to return to Parliament - Hanna Tetteh

Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister and Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya West, Hon. Hanna Serwaa Tetteh has said, it’s actually a liberation for her not to be going back to Parliament again.

Hon. Hanna Serwaa Tetteh lost the Awutu Senya West seat to Former Communication Director of telecom giant MTN, George Nenyi Andah of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the just-ended parliamentary election. George Andah polled 28,867 representing 52.72 percent of total valid votes cast whereas the incumbent MP. Hanna Serwaa Tetteh had 25,664 which is 49 percent.

Speaking to journalists, on her exit from parliament by January 7 2017, she said "actually it’s a relief because remember that I have been in parliament in opposition before in a parliament where we had the first transition in 2001. And I remember that in that parliament even though the numbers were quite tight, it was a very rough experience of the NPP administration that was determined to show up the previous NDC administration that the government had done so much wrong. We were constantly on the defensive and on the same basis that you came to parliament house; you knew that you were continuing to have to defend the administration that I had not been part of and at the same time try to put forth an alternative view of government…So when I look at the composition of the parliament that we have, in some way I feel that I have been spared that for the next four years and that is why I said it was a relief for me.’’ 

Prior to the 2016 parliamentary election, incumbent MP Hannah Serwaa Tetteh described her closest contender George Nenyi Andah of the opposition NPP as a novice who can never be threat to her. 

“I am the Foreign Minister, I have been Minister of Trade and Industry and I have won this seat twice and I have won an overwhelming mandate in the primaries and I am supposed to be afraid of someone who is, even if you want to be charitable a novice. You [the media] are the people making George Andah somebody, I do not consider him a threat,” she said.

Hannah Serwaa Tetteh, was a Member of Parliament in the year 2000, 2004, and 2012 representing the Awutu Senya West constituency in the Central Region.