NPP to Begin Elections in January

The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) will from January 17, 2018 hold its primaries to choose polling station executives, who will elect officers to manage the various constituencies across the country, Acting General Secretary John Boadu, has said.

Mr Boadu stated that the primaries would take place 17 days after the compilation of new register of members at polling stations and constituency levels throughout the country.

He made this known at the party’s Extraordinary National Delegates’ Conference in Kumasi over the weekend, under the theme, “Delivering on Our Promises, Our Roots, Our Strength and Our Future.”

It was attended by President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and his wife, Samira.

The acting NPP chief scribe revealed that the polling station elections would be followed by the election of Electoral Area Coordinators on January 22, 2018; election of constituency executives on January 23, 2018 and the election of Overseas’ Chapter executives and branches on February 25, 2018.

Mr. Boadu disclosed that the election of national officers of the party had been scheduled to take place from 15-20 June 2018, pointing out that the party’s internal competition had been designed to afford every member the opportunity to vie for a position or vote for any candidate of his or her choice.

According to him, aside the internal elections, the current national executives had established a platform to offer opportunity to all members to discuss policies and programmes of the government and make inputs.

“We are also far advanced in establishing a training institute to train people, promote NPP vision, identify and improve talents and inculcate in party faithful the core values, principles and ideals of the NPP,” he announced.

Touching on proposals for amendment of the party’s constitution, Mr Boadu said the NPP’s constitution had been amended on three occasions since the party was formed on June 24, 1992.

These amendments took place in the month of August 1998, 2003 and 2009.

He said the constitutional amendment was necessary to ensure that the document continues to respond to the needs of members and reflect the aspirations of the party.

The NPP acting general secretary insisted that the proposed amendments are intended to ensure smooth operation of the constitution to avert unnecessary controversies, indiscipline and intractable litigation.

He said the members of the party at a National Delegates’ Conference, must endorse an amendment to the (NPP) constitution.

Find statement attached:

STATEMENT BY THE NPP GENERAL SECRETARY, JOHN BOADU AT THE 2017 EXTRAORDINARY NATIONAL DELEGATES CONFERENCE OF THE PARTY

INTRODUCTION

National Chairman of our great party, Your Excellency Mr. President and Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, Your Excellency the Vice President and Spouse, Ministers of State and other government officials, our hardworking Members of Parliament, Colleagues National Officers, Party Executives from the Regions, Constituencies and Polling Stations across the country, Representatives of our External Branches present, our venerable Chiefs, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Invited Guests, the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am pleased to be addressing you once again at this extraordinary national delegates’ conference of the party. To start with, I bring you warm greetings and felicitation from the national secretariat of the party and in particular the national executive committee. This extraordinary conference, as we all know, has been necessitated by the fact that we couldn’t exhaust one of the key agenda of the last national annual delegates conference, which has to do with the review of our party constitution.

You would recall that at the 2017 national delegates’ conference which was held in the Central Regional capital, Cape Coast from August 18 to 20th, a number of resolutions were adopted by conference, which is the highest decision making body of the party. One of such resolutions was the instruction given to National Council to set up an ad-hoc committee to concise and streamline all the amendment proposals received from across the country as well as the party’s external branches.

This decision became necessary because conference couldn’t deliberate on the very many proposals that my outfit had received and compiled into a single document and distributed to the relevant stakeholders in pursuance to Article 18 of our party constitution. It was again observed that there had been some duplication in respect of the proposals for amendments to certain provisions in the party constitution; hence the need for some fine-tuning with the view to making the document less bulky and more comprehensive for the purpose of facilitating its adoption.

Consequent to this, National Council indeed met on the 30th of September and formed an ad-hoc committee to undertake this important exercise of streamlining the amendment proposals as instructed by the National Annual Delegates’ Conference. The committee was chaired by F.F Antoh, the only national vice chairman of the party.  Other members of the adhoc committee were, Hon. O.B. Amoah – Secretary, Joyce O. Boateng, Hon. Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, Godfred Yeboah Dame, Hackman Owusu Agyemang, Hon. Ben Abdalla, Mrs. Agnes Okudzeto, Mr. Antwi Adjei, Richard Asante Yeboah and Mrs. Joyce Agyemang Attafour.

The committee was inaugurated on September 14, 2017 and was given two months within which to submit their report to National Council for onward submission to national conference. This was again in tandem with the resolution of national conference. As noted, the committee’s mandate was also to determine the “substance and workability” of each proposal and present their report to national conference for consideration and adoption. The committee indeed worked within schedule and submitted their report to National Council, which was considered at the last council meeting subject to approval and final adoption by national conference.

Consequently, council directed all the ten regional executive committees of the party to organize expanded regional executive committee meetings comprising constituency executives to brief them on the amendment proposals contained in the committee’s report which would of course, would be considered for adoption at today’s extraordinary conference. I am happy to report that this exercise was successfully carried out in all regions as instructed by national council. I personally attended almost all the meetings together with the national chairman and the national vice chairman. I wish to cease this opportunity to commend our regional executives for chalking this feat within a very limited time. We also distributed copies of the committee’s report to each of the constituencies in the country to keep our executives and delegates updated ahead of today’s conference, which is meant primarily to adopt the committee’s report.

WHAT NEXT AFTER THIS CONFERENCE

We are hoping that by the end of this extraordinary delegates’ conference, the party would have a REVISED CONSTITUTION which would then pave way for internal primaries to be held at the various levels of the party. But before that, we are enjoined by the provisions of Article 3 I(1) of the party constitution to keep an up to date register of members of the party in each polling station and constituency. This has become even more imperative because we are getting ready to hold our internal primaries starting from the polling station level and certainly, an up to date register of members at each polling station would be required for this purpose.

Accordingly, the party, in a memo dated November 10, tasked all constituency and polling station executives across the country to update the polling station register which would be used for the primaries. The deadline for this exercise, as we indicated in the memo, is December 31, 2017. In view of this, I wish to once again use this opportunity to implore all of us to participate actively in this exercise. For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to state and also emphasize that every member of the NPP should go and write his/her in the polling station.

This polling station register, which we are compiling now, is the primary membership record of the party and everybody from his Excellency the President to the ordinary member of the party has to ensure that his/her details are captured in the polling station register. If by the 31st of this month, your name is not captured in the polling station register, then you cannot participate in the forthcoming primaries; either as a candidate or a delegate. The polling station register is going to form the basis for all internal elections in the party. So please, let’s take this exercise with all the seriousness that it deserves. Once again, the deadline is 31st of December, 2017, which is only two weeks away.

After we finish compiling the membership register at the polling stations, we would then begin with the party’s internal primaries across all levels of the party. Of course, we would start with polling station primaries to elect polling station executives from 17th to 21st January, 2018. The polling station election would be followed by the elections of Electoral Area Coordinators from 26th to 29th January, 2018.

National Council also approved proposals to hold Constituency and Regional Annual Delegates Conference from 21st to 24th February and 21st to 24th April, 2018 for the purpose of electing Constituency and Regional Executives respectively. 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. These internal primaries would then be climaxed with the election of National Executive Officers at the 2018 National Delegates’ Conference of the party to be held from June 15 to 17, 2018.

I also wish to formally bring to your attention that, Council, at its last general meeting, which was held on November 28, passed a unanimous resolution to EXTEND THE MANDATE OF ALL SERVING OFFICERS of the party at each level by three months following the expiration of their four year mandate to allow for primaries to be conducted for proper transition to take place.

UPCOMING PROGRAMMES AND EVENTS

Moving forward as a party, we would be organizing regular Policy Fora across the regions and in the constituencies to provide an opportune platform for members of the party to contribute towards shaping government policies and programmes at each level. It is therefore going to provide regular opportunities for members of our party, regardless of age or location, to discuss challenges facing the country and to have real influence on party and government policies.

This exercise, I’m happy to announce, is being supported by our sister party, the conservative party of the United Kingdom (UK) and shall be christened, the NPP Policy Forum.  The maiden edition of these Fora came off in Tamale on 20th November, 2017. Greater Accra and Ashanti have also had their turns. The other regions would hold theirs in the coming months. This project is meant to essentially complement the ongoing party-government relationship tour that the party is undertaking across the country to enhance our electoral fortunes at all times.

The party has also recently set up a special desk, known as the SITUATION ROOM at the National Secretariat dedicated solely to receiving suggestions and concerns from party members from the constituencies across the country. The Situation Room shall operate 24/7 and would be in charge of receiving concerns from ordinary members of the party on daily basis and bring same to the attention of the relevant stakeholders for the necessary redress.

We have also advanced plans for the establishment of a party training institute primarily to offer leadership training to members of the party who aspire to take up leadership positions in the party and in government. It would also provide a credible, cutting-edge research intended to promote the party’s vision of building a free and prosperous society. Again, the Institute would identify and groom talents from our educational institutions, and imbibe in them the kind of leadership that resonates with the 21st century and also inculcate in them the core values that underpin the NPP political establishment.

In effect, the NPP Training Institute shall to a large extent, concern itself to teaching its members, about the party’s ideology, principles, core values as well as the vision of J. B. Danquah, Simon Dombo and Kofi Abrefa Busia. It is envisaged that in the medium to long term, potential appointees in an NPP government, as well as elected officers and appointees of the party at the national, regional, constituency, electoral area coordinating and polling station levels would have received training at the Institute. This project, I am happy to say that the Danquah Institute, which has been, over the years, promoting the party’s ideology, supporting it with policy interventions, cutting edge research, and organizing training and communication programs for her members, is well positioned to start this noteworthy project. We shall rollout the details of this laudable initiative in the coming days.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, and I wish to conclude by reiterating my confidence that as always, we would all give our maximum cooperation to the exercise we have before us today, so that, at the end of this extraordinary conference, we would not only have a REVIEW CONSTITUTION but more importantly, an EFFECTIVE CONSTITUTION that would keep us in power forever. I also wish to use this opportunity to make a passionate appeal to all of us especially the would-be candidates for the various positions in the upcoming primaries and their supporters to conduct this exercise with the necessary candour so that we would have incidence-free primaries for the love of the party.

Let it be said that the NPP came out of the 2018 primaries as a much stronger party. Let it be said that if any party has the wherewithal to do it, then it is the NPP and none other. My fellow party men and women, let us remain unwaveringly united and committed to the call of our party and government at all times so that we can continue to deliver on our promises and for that matter prosperity to the Ghanaian people. I thank you for the audience and it is my hope and prayer that just as we have started well, this conference ends successfully so that at the end of the day, we would all give glory and honour to thy name.

Assalamu alaikum

Source: Dailyguideafrica