'I’m a frustrated chairman' – Bernard Mornah accuses Akufo-Addo of killing the PNC

The People’s National Convention (PNC) is currently comatose and unable to run effectively as a political party worth its salt.

This is according to its chairman, Bernard Mornah who is blaming the party’s leader and former presidential candidate, Dr Edward Mahama who is currently serving in President Akufo Addo’s government as ambassador at large.

Bernard Mornah lamented how Edward Mahama’s acceptance of an appointment to serve in a government the PNC intends to unseat, while he still remains the leader of the party per its own constitution has brought the party to a standstill.

He is the leader of the party. As we speak, that is the constitution of our party, so being the leader of the party, it is obvious that he has taken the party to the NPP,” Bernard Mornah said in an exclusive interview with Pulse Ghana’s Andreas Kamasah. “Here we are, for the past four months we have not been able to hold a meeting. Any time you want to call a meeting, he is on an assignment, and so meetings must be held at the convenience of the ambassador at large, and he has not relinquished his position.

“And so, when national chairman organises a meeting, they ask have you informed the leader of the party? So, you ask yourself, how can we flourish as a political party?”

Edward Mahama is not the only member of the PNC serving in the NPP government, and it should not be a problem if any Ghanaian, regardless of their political affiliation accepts to serve the nation as the PNC leader and others are doing currently.

However, Bernard Mornah is suspicious that the NPP led by president Akufo Ado is on a mission to deliberately collapse the PNC, by picking key persons from the party to serve in its government, an action he believes makes it difficult for the PNC to run effectively, let alone be in a strong position to unseat the current government in the 2020 elections.

“The manner in which our presidential candidate was stolen from us by the NPP subtly is a source of worry to me, and as I said to him in one of our meetings, maybe my failure as chairman is that I did not campaign enough for him to become president whereby he could appoint Akufo Addo as ambassador at large, so I accepted responsibility.

“They say he is ambassador at large, my former national chairman, Ahmed Ramadan has been appointed as the first ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, so the man I succeeded has also been consumed by the NPP, and it’s also obvious that our former national youth organizer has also been taken away as deputy NADMO coordinator,” Mornah lamented.

To worsen the PNC’s predicament is the fact that, according to Bernard Mornah, they are not able to raise funds to run the party and its internal activities to enable them prepare sufficiently for the next elections, which is just about one and a half year away.

“I get up and come to you to say we need support to help us hold internal elections, the first question you will ask is that, how can you be in government and be seeking support from those of us outside of government? Because the leader of your party is in government, and it is appreciated that the spoils of government will get to him, evil or otherwise… So, that is a complex for us in raising and mobilizing logistics to be able to carry out party works,” he added.

The two major political parties, the New Patriotic party and the National Democratic Congress have been governing Ghana since 1992, and have the financial and logistical muscles to continue doing so, obviously till some unforeseeable miracle happens.

Internal elections and flagbearer

Even with all the wherewithal, the NDC has elected its flagbearer, former president John Dramani Mahama, and are marketing him now, knowing very well that contending with incumbent NPP’s candidate is a serious exercise which requires utmost seriousness.

However, the PNC and other minor political parties, including the Convention People’s Party (CPP), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) among others are as usual, ‘delaying’ only to pretend to be busy when it is left with few months to the elections.

As for the PNC, Bernard Mornah said it is awaiting a report from its congress committee on preparations at the polling station level through to the national executives’ level, to determine when to hold their regional executives congress hopefully in November this year, and then the national delegates congress will follow early next year to elect the party’s flagbearer.

“The party is nearly comatose, you call for a meeting and he will tell you sorry I will not be able to make it on this date, let’s put it on another date. Sometimes the issues are such that they need to be confronted hotly so that your relevance in the media can be felt. So, you will notice in particular for me that I don’t issue statements on behalf of the party, I have found other conduits through which I can express myself publicly. Because if you issue a statement and the ambassador at large comes to say he is not aware of the statement, it puts you in a difficult light.

“For instance, the vice president did what he called a townhall meeting parading falsehood…we needed to respond to him, but you have your leader in government serving its interest. Can you call him to sit on a table lambasting the government for economic performance? So, you see the conflict that we have as a party, obviously everything has come to a standstill,” he said.

From this revelation, one can safely predict that the PNC would as usual, not be making any significant impart in the 2020 elections, because electing a flagbearer just some few months to election cannot allow for sufficient marketing of the candidate as well as campaign activities to let the people of Ghana understand their manifesto and why they should choose such a candidate over the incumbent the other contenders.

Until that unlikely miraculous time when the NDC and NPP will be unseated democratically by any other political party to break the back and forth shift of political power, the PNC, CPP, PPP and others will continue to participate in Ghana’s elections as if it were a festival in which they come to perform their ceremonial roles, and whether those roles make any impact at the end of the day or not is none of their business.

Bernard Mornah’s view on the Akuffo Addo government’s performance

While the president Akufo Addo led government is patting itself on the back for creating six new regions, creating temporary jobs for unemployed graduates, improving the country’s Goss Domestic Products among other things, for which some economic analyst, including the international monetary fund have applauded the government, PNC chairman Bernard Mornah has a different view. He believes that the president and his appointees are just throwing dust in the eyes of ‘ignorant’ Ghanaians, saying it would be difficult to give the government four out of ten for its two-and-a-half-year performance.

“It will be difficult to give Nana Akuffo Addo 4 out of ten, and I am being charitable. The president and his vice want us to believe that economics of averages is enough to determine the wellbeing of the people of Ghana…”

If no other than the IMF and other topnotch economists agree with the government on its claim that it has improved the wellbeing of Ghanaians through favourable policies, then what is the basis for Bernard Mornah’s disagreement?

“I give you instance of the telecom sector. Glo, Airtel-Tigo, Vodafone, and MTN are all foreign companies, so all the telecom providers in the country, none is own by you so when they make their money it is calculated as part of your GDP, but it is taken away the next moment. What you are confronted with is the GNP which determines what the nationals of your country actually produce. So, if the Americans and other countries are using GDP as a determinant of the health of their economy, you too you come and use GDP?

“Go to the oil sector, you own 13% of that oil, and the 87% migrates immediately it is produced. Go to the gold sector, you own less than 5%, so you virtually own nothing. So, to constantly come and tell us that these amount of goods and services have been produced in the country so we are doing well, that is bankruptcy in ideas, because we don’t own our economy,” he asserted in trying to substantiate his claim that the NPP government has performed abysmally.

The PNC is not the only political party to have punched holes in the NPP administration’s performance. The largest opposition NDC is always vehement and quick in ‘marching the government boot for boot’, disputing its figures to buttress claims of having bettered the Ghanaian economy among others.

Well, it is the ordinary Ghanaians who are the best judges to decipher the truth between Bernard Mornah’s stance on the state of affairs under the NPP regime and the position of the government itself. Whether their economic and social wellbeing are improving or otherwise, it does not lie in the mouth of any politician; they will feel it.