PNC Congress Postponed

The Peoples National Convention (PNC) has rescheduled its National Delegates Congress for Sunyani on Saturday to December 9 to 11, 2011.

This has become necessary to enable the party conduct the full complement of its constituency elections and regional congresses that will select delegates for the congress.

It was also to ensure that the party presents its full delegates list to the Electoral Commission (EC) before the congress.

The decision was taken after an National Executive Council (NEC) emergency meeting in Accra Tuesday.

On Monday the Daily Graphic reported that the party had not been able to conduct constituency elections and regional congresses in five regions to select delegates to the national congress. So far the party has the full complement of delegates from only the Northern, Upper West, Brong Ahafo and some parts of Ashanti and Eastern regions.

Although the General Secretary of the PNC, Mr Bernard Mornah did not explain the reason for the delay, he expressed the hope that the party would be able to overcome the challenges very soon to enable the party to hold its congress in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region.

Earlier, it was speculated that the congress was in limbo following a move by some disgruntled members who had dragged the party to court.

The five aggrieved members were asking the court to place an injunction on the Congress to elect new party executive on Saturday.

They claim the current executive were in flagrant violation of the party’s constitution by refusing to organise constituency elections.

Mr Bernard Barmami, a member of the group, told Joy News’ unless elections were held in all the 230 constituencies the Congress cannot be held.

He accused the current executive of picking people on the streets to organise a similar Congress in Bolgatanga in 2007, insisting they would not sit down for a similar thing to happen this time.

The group is also calling for the resignation of the party’s executive, including Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan and Bernard Mornah, for an Interim Management Committee to run the affairs of the party until elections were held.

Mr Barmami said several petitions sent to the executive to see to the proper and credible constituency executive elections to be held have fallen on deaf ears and in some cases treated with contempt.

He alleged no single election purported to have been conducted by the party were supervised by the Electoral Commission.

He prayed the court would hear their case and put the congress on hold until the right thing was done.

The General Secretary of the PNC, Bernard Mornah, said his accusers were speaking out of ignorance.

He confirmed receiving the writ from the group, adding their lawyers would be representing the party.

Mr Mornah explained that no where in the party’s constitution has it being stated that constituency executive elections be held at all

the constituencies in the country, adding the constitution calls for two thirds of constituency conferences.

He said five regions had already had their constituency elections which were duly supervised by the Electoral Commission.

Mornah said calls for their resignation were untenable and could not find a place in a democracy.

In a related development, GNA has reported that Dr Edward Mahama, 2008 presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention (PNC), has blamed the party’s dwindling electoral fortunes on unending litigation in the party.

He said some few party members had vowed to cause disunity and drag the party down.

Addressing party members at the Ashanti regional delegates’ congress in Kumasi last Saturday, Dr Mahama said frequent court actions against the leadership was causing disunity and dragging the name of the party into disrepute.

He called on all true members of the party to unite and rally behind the leadership to device strategies that would help propel the party to win more members.

Dr Mahama said PNC had made significant contribution to the governance and development of social interventions to improve the lives of the people in the country.

He said interventions such as the Ghana Education Trust Fund, School Feeding and the Health Insurance which are being implemented in the country today were the ideas birthed by the PNC.

Dr Mahama said with unity of purpose, the party would be able to improve on its electoral fortunes and called on members to work together at the grass-root level to win members for the party.

Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, Chairman of the Party, expressed concern about the decision by some members of the party to settle issues at the law courts and appealed to such people to desist from that in order to promote unity in the party.

He said the PNC was working to reconcile itself and called on all members to work to promote the interest of the party.

Mr Bernard Monah, General Secretary, said the party was determined to win the 2012 elections on the account that both the NDC and NPP had failed Ghanaians.