Isaac Ashai Odamtten, MP Tema East
Isaac Ashai Odamtten was born 13 May 1972. He is a Ghanaian politician who is a member of the National Democratic Congress. He is the Member of Parliament Elect for the Tema East Constituency.
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From 2013 to 2017, he served the Mayor and Metropolitan Chief Executive of Tema Metropolitan Area.
Odamtten serves as a member on the Gender and Children Committee and the Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises Committee of Parliament.
He is a native of Tema in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. He completed the University of Cape Coast in 1999 with Bachelor of Commerce degree (BCom). He also holds a Master of Business administration (MBA) in Accounting and a certificate in project management.
Career
Odamtten is a teacher by profession and started his career as a tutor for the Ghana Education Service before rising to become a Finance officer and Bursar under the same institution. He moved to the International Commercial Bank to serve as the head of finance and senior manager of corporate services before being nominated by John Dramani Mahama to serve as Mayor of Tema in 2013.
He served as Mayor and Metropolitan Chief Executive of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly from 2013 to 2017. One of his achievements was connected to helping fishermen and boosting the fisheries and aquaculture sector to generate more income through the provision of outboard motors to fishermen associations within Tema.
On 3 March 2016, he was elected as the president of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG) and sworn in during the 19th biennial national delegates conference held in Sunyani. He was sworn in after polling 624 votes out the 980 total valid votes cast to beat his sole contender, James Gunu, the district chief executive (DCE) for Akatsi North, who canvassed 356 votes.
He served as a member of the 16-member executive committee of the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa). He was also served as one of the two board members representing West Africa on the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF). On World Cities Day 2016, and following Habitat III, he was one of the speakers brought in from cities around the world as a result of Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Global Challenges event to explore how urban areas can deliver their global SDG goals.
From the 16 to 22 March 2016, he led a delegation on a visit to the Royal Borough Of Greenwich with support from GUBA Enterprise led by Dentaa. The visit was part of a twinning link partnership between the city of Tema and the Royal Borough of Greenwich involving co-operation between the two communities in areas of Education, Sports and Governance.
Politics
Odamtten won the parliamentary bid to represent the National Democratic Congress for the Tema East Constituency ahead of the 2020 elections.
In December 2020, Odamtten beat the incumbent Member of Parliament for Tema East Constituency Daniel Titus Glover with 41,692 votes as against 31,956 votes to win the seat in the 2020 Elections.