CPP not ideologically committed to unification - PNC scribe

Sunyani, May 4, GNA - Mr. Bernard Mornah, General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC), has said the Convention People's Pa= rty (CPP) was not ideologically committed to the unification process initiated by the two parties some time ago but the PNC's position remained unchange= d.

He was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani after a capacity building workshop held at the VAG Hall in Sunyani for some constituency executives of the party.

Mr Mornah said the CPP had not been able to take the decision that could pave the way for a merger of the two parties at the highest decision making level and some of its influential members were 93ruffling the idea= ". The workshop was aimed at improving the capacity of the party's executives at the constituency level to come up with strategies to mobilize grassroots participation towards winning the 2012 election. It was also to strengthen the executives towards holding of the party= 's national delegates congress scheduled from November 25 to 27 this year in Brong-Ahafo Region.

The national congress will be preceded by regional congresses in August and constituency conferences this month. Mr Mornah accused the CPP of flirting with and subscribing to the policies and ideologies of the NDC and NPP, 93which the PNC is vehemently opposed to". He said a PNC government would depart from such policies and economic programmes 93as they tend to cripple the national economy." "It is the PNC that represents the only alternative to the NPP and th= e NDC", he stated and urged Ghanaians to rally behind and vote for the PNC in the next elections.

Mr Mornah said he abhorred the manner in which the 91one lap-top per child project' was being implemented.

"These lap-tops are being supplied to children in some deprived communities where there is no electricity, no teachers to train them, while some of the teachers do not have the requisite knowledge and competence to teach the children how to use the lap-tops", he said. On agriculture, he said the PNC maintained it was not proper for the country to continue to import rice, when there was ample land for agricultural purposes and other development projects.

"Such killer policies that allow huge quantities of rice to be import= ed only serve as an affront to the economic development of the nation as they turn to make foreign countries richer at the expense of Ghana," he said. Mr Mornah added between 2009/2010 Ghana had spent between 450 million and 600 million US dollars to import rice 93when we could have channelled this money to develop other sectors of the economy".

"When the world price of petrol goes up, the two parties, NDC and NPP= , usually do not have any alternative but only push it down the throat of the ordinary Ghanaian who consequently bears the brunt and faces the negative effects of such moves. The PNC will call this anomaly to order when it assumes power," he said. The workshop was organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs in conjunction with the Netherlands Institute for Multi-party Democracy.