The General Secretary of the largest opposition party the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has disclosed that the NDC will be holding its Congress this year after it failed to hold a constitutional amendment conference last year.
This comes in the wake of ruling New Patriotic Party outdooring of an Election Calender that will see National Executives elected latest by July this year. This week, NPP is electing its Polling Station Executives and is expected to end next week.
The NDC on the other hand has announced it will be holding its Congress this year despite delays in passing amendments and holding a conference originally scheduled for last year but which didn’t come on.
The NDC party has also been putting together a special plan to be implemented from its branches to its regional executives in the two “weak regions” of Ashanti and Eastern Region, MyNewsGh.com learnt.
In a yet to be published interview with the Daily Graphic, the NDC Chief Scribe explained the various challenges that made it difficult for the party to hold its conference last year but assured that Congress will not delay.
He said the process of constitutional review requiring consultations and solicitation of view had been labourious, which is the reason why the conference didn’t come off last year.
“…. the activities involved in galvanising and collating views towards the constitutional amendments took much more time than we anticipated so we realised that it would be prudent for us to shelf this idea of a conference but the constitutional review process should continue with the collating of views, distilling and crystalising them and engaging with the regions and constituencies,” he said.
Mr. Asiedu Nketiah said there were internal matters about structure that must be addressed as well because the system appeared rigged against itself making it hard to elect competent people at all levels from the Branch to the National Level.
“The challenge that we have been having about our internal elections is that the party is structured in such a way that the elections at every level are conducted by the next higher level…. that is one of the big problems that could lead to weak branches as people may go down there and their focus is not on who can do the work effectively, but who will support me to win the next election and it is very rampant particularly in the Ashanti and Eastern regions and selected constituencies countrywide”.
He refused to give further details of the plan the party intends rolling out for the two Regions.
“… I won’t leak our strategy except that this mantra of we believing we won the election so let everybody stay in their place is not anything that is going to help the party”.
Source:Fiilafmonline/mynewsghana
