GCPP To Mark 1st Anniversary Of Dan Lartey

The Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) will on Monday, August 1, 2011, organise a memorial lecture to mark the first anniversary of the death of the founder of the party, Mr Dan Lartey.

The event which will be held at the Teachers Hall in Accra, is being organised in collaboration with the Lartey family.

According to Dr Henry Herbert Lartey, acting Chairman and Leader of the GCPP, the day will be marked by a political colloquium which will feature prominent politicians, eminent personalities, and seasoned and respected journalists.

He traced the life history of the late Dan Lartey and described him as having played “a commendable role in the business, political and social life of Ghana.

It said at an early age in his life, Dan Lartey was employed by UAC Ghana where he was trained and groomed to become one of the promising Ghanaian managers.

“As a businessman of immense standing, he was one-time Vice-President of the Ghana Chamber of Commerce; his company, Lartey Books and Stationery (LBS), got nationalised and was used to supply most of the stationery for the free education system that Dr

Nkrumah and the CPP established,” the statement said.

He added that the late Dan Lartey was one of the few Nkrumaists who bankrolled the National Alliance of Liberals (NAL) and the People’s National Party in the 1969 and 1979 general elections respectively.

He said Mr Lartey also established the Lartey and Lartey Limited, Coastal Fisheries Limited, Standard Bakery Limited, Federal Store Nigeria Limited, Sweaters and Socks Limited and the Citadel Press, which printed five newspapers – Citadel Daily, Citadel Sports, The

African World, The Guardian, Guardian Sports.
He said Mr Lartey was a fearless advocate of freedom of speech and was arrested on more than five occasions for expressing his views on political happenings.

“In one of them, he was incarcerated for a long period of four years and yet that did not deter him,” the statement said.

It said it was under the climate of fear that the late Dan Lartey boldly offered his premises at the Citadel House as the meeting place of the emergent Movement for Freedom and Justice, whose membership included the likes of Obeng Manu, the late Professor Adu-Boahene, the late Jonny Hansen, Ray Kakraba Quarshie, Mr Kwesi Pratt, Mr Ali Masmadi Jehu-Appiah, Mr Akoto Ampaw, Dr Sekou Nkrumah, Lt

Owusu Gyimah, and Hon Joe Baidoo-Ansah, among others.