NPP to organize national conference at Koforidua

Koforidua, Dec. 26, GNA- The New Patriotic Party(NPP) is to organize it's national conference at Koforidua from January 5 to January 7, 2007 at the EREDEC Hotel. The three-day conference which would be organized under the theme "Moving forward in unity" would be climaxed with a non-denominational church service in the morning of January 7 at the EREDEC Hotel and a rally at the Jackson's Park in the afternoon.

This was disclosed by the National Organizer of NPP, Mr Laud Commey at a press conference at Koforidua on Tuesday. He said the conference would be attended by over 200 delegates made up of 1,429 delegates from the constituencies and other delegates from the foreign constituencies of the party and would be used to reenergize and resource the structures of the party in preparations towards the 2008 elections.

Mr Commey said the conference would discuss reports from the regions, some key ministries and the government to assess how the manifesto presented to the people of Ghana by the party was being fulfilled. He said a special feature of the conference would be the opportunity that would be offered the delegates to sit with the President to chat with him and ask him key questions on issues affecting the areas where they were coming from.

Mr. Commey said some proposals had been forwarded to the party secretariat and would expect some amendments to be made to the constitution of the party but did not specify. He explained that as far as the party was concern, there are no presidential aspirants of the party but what was happening could best be described as party members conducting consultations and "testing the waters".

Mr. Commey explained that, by the constitution of the party, 14 months before an election, the party opens nominations for possible presidential candidates to fill their nominations. He explained that, it was after the filling of nomination that a committee would be set up by the party to vet the nominees and it was after a nominee had been confirmed by the committee that the fellow would become a presidential aspirant of the party.

Mr. Commey described the research said to have been published on the presidential aspirants through a poll of delegates as a fun because the delegates of the party were not automatic. He explained that by the constitution of the party, every constituency would be expected to organize a special delegates conference to elect four delegates from the ten constituency executives and six non-executive members and as at now nobody knows who would be a delegate and so wonder who were interviewed. Mr. Commey said to him, the various threats of passing of vote of no confidence in the various executives of the party at different levels of the party was an expression that the party was alive and that the ordinary members of the party could point out faults of the leadership to them even if the ordinary members were wrong.

The Eastern Regional chairman of the party, Mr Yaw Gyekye Amoabeng explained that, most of the party members accusing him of not acting on their threat to have their executives removed were not having their way because often, they failed to abide by the laid down procedures in the constitution of the party.