NPP Outdoors New Constitution

The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), after successfully going through some rigorous amendment processes last year, yesterday made public all reviews made in the party’s constitution.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra, acting general secretary, John Boadu, said a lot of the articles in the previous constitution have been amended, either by new insertions, deletion or alteration.

According to him, with the provisions in the revised constitution, all is now set for the holding of internal primaries to elect executive officers to occupy various positions in the party from polling station to national level.

He said polling station elections would be held across the country from 17th to 21st January, 2018.

“This would be followed by the election of Electoral Area Coordinators from 26th to 29th January, 2018. Chapter Elections for all our External Branches have been scheduled for February 15 to 25, whereas the elections of all External Branch Executives would be held from the 18th to 30th of March, 2018”, he said, adding that guidelines for the conduct of the internal elections have already been issued.

KEY AMENDMENT PROVISIONS

1) Amendment of Article 14 [now, Article 15] to make NASARA one of the Special Organs of the Party just like the youth wing and the women’s wing. This also means that the following Articles have been amended

– Article 7(2) to include Deputy Constituency Nasara Coordinator who shall be appointed. The substantive Constituency Nasara Coordinator shall be elected

– Article 9(1) to include Deputy Regional Nasara Coordinator who shall be appointed

– Article 10(4) to include two Deputies for the National Nasara Coordinator both of whom shall be appointed

2) On the convening of meetings, Article 7, 9 and 10 have been amended in respect of constituency, regional and national organization respectively to read as follows;

In the event that the Constituency/Regional/National Chairperson fails to convene a meeting, a written resolution by a quarter of the membership of the Constituency/Regional/National Executive Committee should be sufficient to compel the convening of a meeting with stated agenda as communicated in the resolution.

3) Article 8 has been amended to give the party’s external branches a representation at the National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Council.

4) Article 10 has been amended to include past Presidential Candidates and past Running Mates as members of the National Executive Committee (NEC).

5) Article 10 has been amended to make the President a member of the party’s Steering Committee.

6) Article 4 has been amended to strengthen the party’s grievance procedure on the matters of discipline and provides as follows:

1. No member of the Regional Executive Committee shall be a member of the Regional Disciplinary committee
2. In order that the hearing of petitions are expedited, the Regional Disciplinary Committee shall ordinarily not spend more than 4 weeks in dealing with any matter before it and shall submit a report together with its recommendations to the Regional Executive for implementation or onward transmission to the Constituency office for implementation
3. The National Disciplinary Committee has been reconstituted as follows:
4. One (1) person appointed by the National Executive Committee who shall be a woman.
5. Two (2) representatives of the Party’s Parliamentary Group appointed by that group; at least one of whom shall be a woman

iii. One (1) representative of the National Council of Elders appointed by that group

1. One (1) representative of the Legal and Constitutional Committee appointed by that group
2. One (1) representative of the Regional Chairpersons appointed by that group
3. One (1) person appointed by the National Chairperson

vii. One (1) person appointed by the President where the Party is in government or the Presidential candidate where the Party is in opposition.

viii. At the first meeting of the National Disciplinary Committee, the Chairman shall be elected from among members by the members themselves.

7) Article 10 has been amended to read as follows:

The national secretariat shall be headed by the General Secretary and consist of the following;

1. National Organizer,
2. Director of Finance & Administration

iii. Director of Communications,

1. Director of Campaign Strategy,
2. Director of IT
3. Director of Research and Elections

vii. Director of External Affairs

viii. Director of Protocol

Concluding, the acting general secretary said: “The NPP holds the view that this reviewed constitution would add the needed impetuous to the party’s organizational strength at all levels. It has been well streamlined and made more effective to directly reflect the exigencies of this moment”.

BACKGROUND TO AMMENDMENT PROCESS

It would be recalled that in pursuance to the provisions of Article 18 of the constitution, an opportunity was afforded members of the party to submit proposals for constitutional amendments. This was followed by a National Delegates’ Conference in Cape Coast on 26^th August, 2017.

At an extraordinary national delegates’ conference in Kumasi on 17th December, 2017, some of the motions were successfully adopted whereas others were rejected by conference. A few contentious ones were, however, withdrawn by the sponsors of the motion on legitimate grounds.

Source: thePublisher