Don’t worry about EC report — Samia
The Chairperson of the Convention People's Party (CPP), Madam Samia Yaba Nkrumah, has assured supporters that the party is working on a report by the Inspectorate Division of the Electoral Commission (EC).
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She said the EC report that described the CPP as non-functional was "one of those small challenges that the party could overcome."
She noted that the party would "never die and the vision of Ghana's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, would never die."
She contended that the party had its assets that were not built with state funds confiscated by the state, thereby denying the party the opportunity to have a level playing field.
Industrial Holding
Madam Nkrumah made the remark when she interacted with media practitioners during the Upper East Regional Delegates Congress of the CPP in Bolgatanga last Saturday.
She further pointed out that "those assets that were confiscated by the state were being run by the CPP members from their own salaries, savings and other contributions."
The chairperson, however, expressed optimism that the party was capable of overcoming the challenges it was currently facing.
She stressed that "we will open up offices in two-thirds of the constituencies in Ghana in the coming months because we need to show to the electorate that the CPP is the third force that they have been yearning for to provide the country with an alternative government to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP)."
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She explained that the alternative government that Ghanaians were yearning for should be committed to fighting corruption,providing a human-centred development and propelling industrialisation.
Madam Nkrumah, therefore, expressed regret that industries that were set up by Dr Nkrumah in the Upper East Region such as the Ghana Industrial Holding Corporation(GIHOC) and the Meat Products Company Limited at Pwalugu had been abandoned.
According to her, the CPP was capable of becoming self-reliant in financing its operations, saying "for instance, if we ask every member of the CPP to contribute one Ghana cedi towards running the party, I am sure we will move ahead instead of allowing just one or two people to become the sole financiers of the party."
"We must have the courage and resilience to rise up again if we are true Nkrumaists and believe in his ideologies," she stressed.
Elections
The Director of Elections and an aspiring General Secretary of the CPP, Mr Kwabena Bomfeh, was of the view that aspects of the report did not reflect the true situation on the ground and "in any case the report is two years old."
He argued that the party had written to the EC to explain that it did not do due diligence in looking for the offices of the party in the various constituencies, saying "they went to wrong places in search of our offices."
According to Mr Bomfeh, how could the same EC that supervised its eight regional congresses across the country turn around and say that the party was not present in two-thirds of the 275 constituencies in Ghana.
He also said that when the Founder of the Progressive People's Party (PPP), Dr Paa Kwesi Ndoum, exited the CPP as a former flag bearer, he took back the offices he personally opened and financed and so the numbers eventually decreased "but that is not to say that we are not present in the 275 constituencies."