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04.02.2014 NPP

NPP holds crunch National Council meeting to discuss conference

By Daily Guide
NPP holds crunch National Council meeting to discuss conference
04.02.2014 LISTEN

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is expected to hold a crunch, National Council meeting today to deliberate on matters that has been affecting the party in recent times.

High on the agenda is a key decision about the venue for the party's impending national conference to select national executives, slated for March 1,2014.

Currently, the party appears divided over whether to centralize or decentralize the venue for the all-important exercise and the intense debate on the issue is having a spillover effect on who is doing the right thing.

Martin Agyei-Mensah Korsah, NPP's Director of Elections, who confirmed the National Council meeting said, the Council will "deliberate a number of issues. Most likely on the table will be discussion about how we conduct this 'national executives' election."

"The National Executive Committee, which is a bit lower than the National Council, decided that we hold elections across the country in all the 10 regions after considering all issues involved.

"Why would the underlining factors be money? If the decision would change, the question would be, can we raise GH¢1.2million ($12 billion) to run this election at one location? Or can we use far less amount for the same exercise but spread across the regions?"Mr Agyei-Mensah Korsah revealed.

Mr. Agyei-Mensah Korsah said it is not true that the NPP is broke.

"I reject that assertion completely. The debate now is how to use our money. In all the elections we have done from constituency to regional level, the NPP did not go to borrow money for the exercises.

"So far, per the party's calculations, it will cost us GHC1.2 million for a centralized exerdse, whereas decentralization will cost us GHC 250,000 for a similar exercise. Both of them are expected to give us similar results," he said.

"The decentralization idea is cost effective. It will save us money," he emphasized.

According to Mr. Agyei-Mensah Korsah, "some members of our party have been in the public and in the media criticizing this view and creating the impression as though we are unable to dedde where we hold our election. That issue is still lingering on and the meeting will deal with that conclusively."

He said the National Elections Committee was going on as scheduled to organize elections, adding nothing had changed so far.

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