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"CPP Is Fantasizing…It Won’t Win 1% In 2012 Poll"
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- Category: Politics
- Created on Sunday, 24 July 2011 00:00
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"CPP Is Fantasizing…It Won’t Win 1% In 2012 Poll"
A youth group of the Convention People's Party (CPP) says should the party dare put up a candidate to contest the 2012 Presidential Elections, it will not garner even one per cent of the total vote cast.
The group says it will be a wasteful expenditure on a dream that is unachievable if the CPP decides otherwise.
Nana Osei Boateng, Spokesperson for the group known as Sankofa, told Radio Gold in an interview that it will best serve the CPP’s interest to build itself up at the grassroots level and gain more grounds in parliament than to field a presidential candidate in election 2012.
“…it’s a waste of money…when we insist on contesting for presidential election, we will not win. I doubt if we will even get 1 per cent of the votes. We should rather contest for the parliamentary and gain more grounds. We should also concentrate on building our structures at the grass roots level, instead of contesting for the presidency…” he opined.
Nana Osei Boateng also urged Dr. Paa Kwesi Ndoum, flagbearer of CPP during the 2008 elections, to save himself the trouble of spending money down the drain since his aspiration to be president on the ticket of the CPP will never become a reality.
“…if he has any help to give the party, he should give the money which he is going to use for the campaign to the party for them to develop the party structures,” he advised.
The CPP is scheduled to elect its National Executives in the next six to eight weeks and elect its flag bearer for Election 2012 on September 30 this year.
Source: Rebecca Quaye/peacemonline.com
No comments'Judicial Corruption: Who will arrest the watchman?'
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- Category: Politics
- Created on Saturday, 23 July 2011 00:00
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'Judicial Corruption: Who will arrest the watchman?'
{sidebar id=11 align=right}The Communications Director of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Mr William Dowokpor, is worried that the Judicial Service which serves as the last resort for people to seek justice is itself plagued with corruption.
The Service, in recent times, has constantly been slammed for allegedly engaging in acts of corruption alongside their mandate to ensure justice in the society.
The Committee for Joint Action (CJA) is the latest organisation to point accusing fingers at the Judicial Service for engaging in massive corruption and misappropriation of funds.
The group claimed a report by the Auditor General’s Department revealed "appalling" corruption within the service, and asked the Chief Justice to institute immediate measures to clean her house.
Its convener, Mr Kwesi Adu, said during a press conference on Tuesday that the corruption in the Judicial Service is gradually eroding public confidence in it as an anti-corruption institute.
On Radio Gold’s current affairs programme Alhaji and Alhaji Saturday, Mr Dowokpor expressed disappointment at the revelations against the service, asking “who is going to arrest the watchman and deal with the watchman?”
“If this is happening in the Judicial Service, what would you expect of other institutions?” he quizzed.
Mr Dowokpor urged people to rely more on civil society to become the conscience of the nation, applauding the CJA for being diligent on the corruption in the Service. He asked the group to exhibit the same attitude irrespective of which government is in power.
General Secretary of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Monarh, in his submission said the CJA has from its beginning made it clear to the public that it will struggle with Ghanaians for better living conditions.
“And in that struggle, issues of corruption, issues of misapplication, issues of opulent lifestyle of government officials and all will have to be vigorously investigated so that we will be able to save substantial resources for the general use of all of us.”
Commenting on the specific allegations raised by the CJA, Mr Monarh said the Committee realised that huge sums of monies were paid to prosecutors and doctors for autopsies on dead bodies, but they have "not been properly accounted for and there are not even, in most cases, documentation to prove, or evidence that these monies have been received"
He said, "the Judicial Service that is supposed to be a custodian of our laws is not able to put in place that monies cannot be spent or disbursed without a payment voucher. It's strange and at the end of the day several millions of Ghana cedis will get evaporated, will get used and consumed by some individuals; or for some reasons these monies cannot be traced to any payment voucher is a serious, serious problem.”
Mr Monarh bemoaned the attitude of some personnel within the Judicial Service who sought to use their conditions of service to justify the alleged acts of corruption in the Service.
He quoted a joint statement issued on 29th June 2011 by the Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana (AMJG) and the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG) which condemned “persistent vicious and ill motivated attacks on the Judiciary by a section of the public under varying names and descriptions...challenges confronting the Judiciary and the Judicial Service amidst logistical and financial constraints coupled with the difficult and poor conditions of service for both Judges and Staff ought to be the focus for all believers in the rule of law.”
The statement, according to the PNC General Secretary, “is an attempt to justify that if there is even corruption in the Judiciary, because of the logistical constraints, because of the conditions of service that the Judiciary faces, people should not talk about the corruptions but we should concentrate on what the judiciary problems are; and if we concentrate on that we will be serving the rule of law…
“I find this very strange coming from our Judges, our magistrates…” he stated.
Mr Monarh alleged that “the Judiciary itself is corrupt; the judiciary itself is in trillions of difficulties…”
He asked: “Is it any wonder that as a nation, we have witnessed several cases …that concern government officials about financial impropriety…thrown out of our courts on accounts of some technicalities?”
He wondered if the Judiciary throws out cases of corruption before it because the institution was convinced it was corrupt, and would not want to push hard on others for fear that it would trigger an investigation into their own operations.
Mr Kwesi Pratt, Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper and a panelist on the programme, also wanted to know about the kind of accounting system the Judicial Service operated and asked the Chief Justice to ensure that the public purse is protected.
He reminded the CJ of her duty as the administrative head of the Judicial Service, adding that “we are all looking up to her to do what is her duty”.
Story by Dorcas Efe Mensah/myjoyonline.com/Ghana
Businessmen are sabotaging government - Solomon Nkansah
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- Category: Politics
- Created on Monday, 18 July 2011 00:00
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Businessmen are sabotaging government - Solomon Nkansah
The Deputy Propaganda Secretary of the ruling NDC Solomon Nkansah, says businessmen in Ghana are sabotaging the ruling government.
He said this on Multi TV during “Mpensempensemu” on Badwam, the newspaper review segment. The Propaganda secretary based his arguments on the notion that “some have politically driven business mindset”.
Explaining the rationale behind the statement, he said the ex factory price of GHACEM cement has not been increased, saying the variation in prices of the product assigned to the cost of transportation is not a good business idea but “indiscipline and wickedness on the Ghanaian businessman”.
Businesses are driven on profit incentives but Mr. Solomon Nkansah says, “disciplined and patriotic businessmen” who are financially disciplined will not engage in an act of this nature.
He said the objective of these businessmen is to disgrace and tag the ruling government with a bad name.
Discussing the supplementary budget read in parliament by Dr. Kwabena Duffour, the Finance Minister, the NDC’s Deputy Propaganda secretary was of the view that President Mills’ economy had faced challenges on the assumption of office created by the previous regime as a result of its poor economic management.
Source: Multi TV/Ghana
DI doubtful about start of biometric registration
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- Category: Elections & Governance
- Created on Friday, 22 July 2011 00:00
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DI doubtful about start of biometric registration
Per the timetable of the Electoral Commission, the compilation of a new voter register, using
biometric technology, should begin in October 2011 and end March 2012.
The timetable, which is available on the website of Danquah Institute, has set September 2012 as the latest date to produce a provisional voters register (PVR), exhibit the PVR and update it. The EC estimates that a total number of 13 million people may be registered for the 2012 general elections.
However, the Danquah Institute has expressed serious doubts about the timetable. The policy think tank points out that by the EC’s own timetable the contract negotiation, award and management of procurement of logistics should all have been completed before the end of last month.
“We fear that the delay could be as much as three months. Now, that would be fatal to the total national desire for a credible voters register, using biometric technology. We believe the EC needs all the help it can get to work to this tight timetable. This may include a lot of support from the media, civil society and political parties,” according to a release by the Danquah Institute.
“Public sensitization should have started in June. This month, by the programme of the EC, should see the contractor delivering material, training staff and getting on with on-site technical support between now and September. Yet, it was only on Monday, July 11 that the Electoral Commission started the process of technical evaluation and selecting from the seven shortlisted companies who tendered bids,” Asare Otchere-Darko, the Executive Director of Danquah Institute said.
With the opening of the bids last week, all the documented proposals submitted by the seven companies would be studied and further shortlisted before one of the lot will be selected. This process could take up to the end of July. This could mean at least one month delay in a process of compiling a new voter register that is scheduled to complete in the last quarter of 2012, election year.
“I think the EC should explain to us what has caused this apparent delay. Is it because Government delayed in releasing the ¢50.8 million budgeted for this year’s exercise or there are other technical reasons? We need to know,” Mr Otchere-Darko said.
The Danquah Institute has also urged the EC to come out “to reassure the public that it can, indeed, deliver a credible biometric voter register and early enough for the December 2012 general elections”.
The EC is expected to use 23,000 registration centres for this exercise, an increase of 2,000 on the number of polling stations in 2008.
Though the EC presented its GH¢80 million budget to Government last year, it was only in last week’s supplementary budget that Government releasedGH¢50m for the Commission to get on with the registration exercise.
That figure is considered to be adequate for this year’s exercise, the Danquah Institute, however, has been pushing the EC to make clear its confidence in working up to schedule.
The EC expects to complete the registration early enough to undertake any possible mop-up work and transmit the final data to the centre in Accra before the end of March 2012 for data centre activities to begin in April.
This will include, uploading of voters’ data from the district and regional hubs into the computer at the data centre and the all-important exercise of a centralised data cleaning exercise. It is at this stage that the biometric data (AFIS) captured will be analysed and any double or multiple registration deleted.
Per the timetable, the third quarter of 2012 will begin with the completion of de-duplication and cleaning of the data collected. A new provisional voters register will be produced and exhibited. It may be updated to take care of newly eligible voters after the exercise before the cut off date.
“Will the EC be able to come up with a final voters register by October as expected? Indeed, even before this apparent delay, we were not comfortable with the orginal timetable, fearing that the October date was cutting it too close to Election Day,” said Mr Otchere-Darko.
Between April and June 2011, technical evaluation and shortlisting were done as scheduled for the initial 47 companies which put in bids. But, the final evaluation should also have been done, site validation test and approval by Public Procurement Board done and the contractor secured for sensitisation to have started.
By DI
Source: The Statesmanonline
CPP must move forward together
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- Category: Politics
- Created on Monday, 18 July 2011 00:00
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CPP must move forward together
Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his superb analysis of democracy observes that "prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Thus, democracy virtually assures that only bad and dangerous men will ever rise to the top of government."
Those who seek political office appear to be eager to break the moral code that most of us are willing to follow. The greater the power of the political office that a candidate is seeking, the more likely it is that that individual has no sense of right and wrong.
Some of the questions that immediately come into mind are: why are scoundrels successful in the political arena? Even if we recognize that morally corrupt individuals will seek to rule over others, why do voters support such candidates? Would we not expect people to vote for morally upright candidates? Do corrupt candidates have an advantage over candidates with integrity?
Too often, some Ghanaians confuse others into thinking that the CPP "can never win" power. With a lot of uphill struggle, the CPP will be able to convince potential voters that their vote will make a difference. If we may recall, it was during the 2008 general elections that Ghanaians saw the re-emergence of the new CPP. Even today, most Ghanaians still do not understand why the CPP failed to win the 2008 general elections when it was obvious during the electioneering campaign that the CPP candidate Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom and his running mate Dr. Abu Sakara were over and above the other contestants in knowledge of the issues and clarity of how to deliver a transformed Ghana.
Those who lived in the 50’s and 70’s will admit that CPP has been in power before, but the last win the party won the General Election was 1979 when Dr. Hilla Liman won on the ticket of the PNP with the support of the CPP’s organization machine. Since then, the NPP and the NDC have fought for the leadership of the country. It is heartbreaking for some people to think that the CPP would probably need a wholesale collapse of votes on the part of the NDC or NPP to make major gains.
It is also regrettable that most people do not identify with the difficulty of the party. The setback with the party is not lack of leadership but bad attitude of some members. The poor showing of the party over the years is not because it lack leaders but it is the result of the fact that some people in the party have always sat back to ''watch and see'' how other people will make it attractive. Where is the self-determination Dr Kwame Nkrumah taught us?
It is on record that when people are elected into office to lead the party, some people deliberately malign and sabotage their efforts to ensure that they do not succeed. What is even disturbing is that all those who have acted in this way were often in bed with NDC or NPP and as a result did not want the good of the party. CPP members must believe that the party is in the political scene as a third force, to win political power and govern but not to play second fiddle to any political party.
Interestingly, those who tear the party apart from within are the same people who are swift to declare these elected officers as ineffective, inefficient, and non-CPP. Such people must positively revolutionize their mental orientation for the good of the party. If we all support elected officers, they will deliver to our expectations. Back-biting and the tendency that some people are more important than the others, is not the way to go.
What we have failed to recognize is that no individual can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. Members of this great party must believe in the party’s motto (Forward Ever, Backward Never) so that if we all move forward together, victory will take care of itself. Possibly, the leaders of the party must put in place punitive measures to sanction any CPPist whose intention is to benefit from the ill-gotten gains of the NDC or NPP at the expense of the great CPP. In the same way, comrades of the party must be made to understand that the party is not for anybody; it is for all of us.
As party people who are interested in ensuring that the party wins political power, we must promote unanimity and cohesiveness at all times for the Ghanaian electorate to take us serious and bring to a close the gratuitous ill will and two-facedness. We have every right to campaign for anybody we like but whiles we do that, we must make sure that we do not undermine the contributions of those who kept faith with the party and maintained it from the beginning of the Fourth Republic until this time.
It may interest a lot of people to know that, high-flying personalities like Hon. Ibrahim Alabira, Hon. Lawyer Abekah, Hon. Freddy Blay (Now with NPP), Hon. Mrs. Mary Ankomah Boakye Boateng (National Women Organizer Aspirant), Hon. Kojo Armah (Vice Chairman Aspirant) and Hon. Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom (Flagbearer Aspirant) have all been in parliament before Hon. Samia and therefore championed the course of the CPP. Similarly, eminent people like Alhaji Asuma Banda, Prof. Abubakar Alhassan, Prof. Dr. Edmund Delle (National Chairman Aspirant) and Comrade Ladi Nylander (Current National Chairman and Aspirant) have all directed the affairs of the party until today.
Surprisingly to most Ghanaians, this is the first time in the history of the CPP that it is preparing to go for an early congress to elect its National officers on 23rd - 24th July at Takoradi and later elect Flagbearer on 30th September 2011 at Tamale. This is unprecedented and credit must go to the current leadership of the party, especially the chairman, comrade Ladi Nylander. This was not the case in time past where the party often elected its National officers just some few months before general elections.
It is also under the leadership of Comrade Ladi Nylander that the party has now become attractive to a lot of young people by organizing them at the grassroots, reaching out to the youth through the mass media, house to house and school to school campaign. One can equally say without any contradiction that his leadership has amended the CPP constitution and introduced ‘How CPP will do it series’ which has brought on board all the splinter groups within the party. Does he not deserve our commendation instead of the needless chastisement?
If today, Hon. Samia is interested in doing what they have done, let us encourage her and conduct ourselves in a way that would not create inkling in the minds of many people that without her position, the party would have collapsed. Indeed one person alone cannot breathe life into the kismet of the party; it will take a collective effort.
What all true CPPist must understand is that, there is no way a boat can go forward if each one is rowing their own way. The observation one can copy from the behaviour of wild ducks is that, even though they make a lot of noise, they also have the sense to benefit from occasionally flying in formation. Can the CPP learn any lesson from the wild ducks in its forward match as 2012 is the obvious opportunity for the CPP to win political power?
As comrades of the great CPP, it is important we make a clean breast that regardless of our differences, we will always strive shoulder to shoulder because we believe in each other. In the eyes of the Ghanaian electorate, CPP can be seen as the most effective political party when they support each other without discomfiture, unkind remarks and disagree without. In joining together the CPP will be able to win power in 2012!
Author: Paa Kow Ackon
CPP Activist, Korley Klottey Constituency
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