Politics of Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Source: peacefmonline.com
The Deputy Director of Communications of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fred Agbenyo says the party will do all it can to follow the recommendations made by the 13-member Professor Kwesi Botchway Committee.
This according to him, will help the party come back to power in 2020.
However, Member of Parliament for Manhyia North in the Ashanti Region, Collins Owusu Amankwah says there is no way NDC will come back to power in 2020.
This is because “while they are trying to follow the recommendations, we are also findings ways to make sure they don’t come back to power. We are not just going to sit down doing nothing, and so it will be a dream for them (NDC) to think they will come back to power in 2020. They should stop daydreaming…they will stay in opposition for a very long time”
The two were speaking in a panel discussion on Peace FM morning show ‘Kokrokoo’, Tuesday on the report which was submitted to the leadership of the NDC on Monday at the party’s headquarters.
In presenting the report, Prof Botchwey said: “We did a very comprehensive job of listening to everybody.
Everybody spoke frankly and honestly. We do make a number of recommendations including a recommendation that the party puts together a group of credible and eminent members of our party to undertake a peace-making and healing tour of the country and visit all key sectors and constituencies. We believe this is extremely important for purposes of creating the necessary conditions for any serious work that needs to be done in the way of the party restructuring and renewal.
We also have a recommendation that the party takes steps to restore the integrity of the biometric register and the expanded Electoral College. Additionally, we recommend that steps be taken to restore the capacity and effectiveness of the party’s organs, especially to the branch level. We believe these organs are most critical because they are the party’s immediate connections with the people. We are, after all, a truly mass party.
We also have recommendations on ways in which we can and must improve the collation of election results. We also believe that steps ought to be taken by the party to reconnect itself properly to our social democratic roots and the principal actors in these social democratic roots – the social forces that populate our social democratic base".
Meanwhile, below are the recommendations contained in the report
1. That the party puts together a group of credible and eminent members of our party to undertake a peacebuilding and healing of the country.
2. That the party takes steps to restore the integrity of the biometric register and the expanded electoral college.
3. We recommend that steps be taken to restore the capacity and effectiveness of the party's organs especially at the branch level where we believe these organs are the most critical because they are the party's immediate connection to the people, we are afterall a truly mass party.
4. We also have recommendations on ways we can and must improve the collation of election results.
5. We also believe that steps ought to be taken by the party to reconnect itself properly to our social democratic roots and the principal actors in these social democratic roots.
6. We recommend that steps ought to be taken to strengthen research and intelligence in the party. This should involve crowding in a larger body of the party's intellectual base which has not been particularly active in the past, this will help to support the party's research capacity.
7. There are recommendations that the party will scale-up and re-invigorate its work in the area of youth organisation.
8. The organisation of women, we note that significant changes have taken place in the country's demographic profile and that the party ought to take notice of this and all the implications of these changes.