PPP ‘outdoors’ Nduom tomorrow
The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) will Saturday initiate the move to bring the real change that Ghanaians are yearning for when it holds its third national convention at the Trade Fair Centre in Accra.
Advertisement
Towards that end, the party will introduce Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom as its flag bearer for the 2016 presidential election to cement the start of the journey for the take-over of the Flagstaff House as the next government.
The occasion would also be used to unveil the party’s platform which is its version of a manifesto.
Also, the parliamentary candidates of the party would be introduced to the over 3000 delegates from across the country that would gather at the Trade Fair Centre.
The PPP, which was founded in February 2012, had its first convention in Accra while the second convention took place at Takoradi in the Western Region.
The convention, which is on the theme “Jobs for all through competent and incorruptible leadership”, is expected to provide the launch pad to start what the party describes as “the move to bring the real change that Ghanaians are yearning for.”
Touching base with the grass roots
Throwing more light on the convention in an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Chairman of the party, Nii Allotey Brew Hammond, said the party had decided to hold the convention in Accra because “Accra is the heartbeat of the nation and whatever goes on here will be felt in the nation so that our message can go down to the grass roots effectively.”
He explained that for the PPP, its convention was not a day to elect a candidate but a day for the elected candidate to accept the decision to lead the party and be presented.
Other Trending Stories
“We will ask Ghanaians to believe in us and Dr Nduom to bring the real change that every Ghanaian wants,” he said.
He said at the close of nominations by the party, only Dr Nduom had filed to lead the party and added that he was subsequently vetted and confirmed as the candidate to lead the party in the election.
Impressive start for PPP
In the 2012 election, the PPP was the third party that filed the highest number of parliamentary candidates, numbering 211, thus, following the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who both filed in all the 275 constituencies.
That was seen as impressive considering the fact that the party was formed in February 2012 and had within a period of six months, succeeded in fielding 211 candidates when other parties that had been in the system for a longer time could not achieve that feat.
This time round, Nii Hammond said, the party had instituted measures to increase the number of its parliamentary candidates and added that “even without occupying a seat in Parliament, we fielded the third largest number of parliamentary candidates.”
‘Respect for the Political Parties Law’
In seeking to achieve that, he said, the party had ensured that its offices across the country had been strengthened and also met the requirements of the Political Parties Law with at least two-thirds presence in all the districts of the country.
The PPP, he said, had filed its financial report to the Electoral Commission (EC) and urged all other parties to do same.
He said the party’s serious attachment to education was what prompted it to resort to the Supreme Court on the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) and added that that was to court the confidence of the electorate.
Six years of SHS education
A PPP government , he said, would ensure that every Junior High School (JHS) graduate continued to the Senior High School (SHS) and that the duration of the SHS programme would be re-defined to six years.
“We believe that education is what determines all our future earnings but it is now being enjoyed by just a privileged few,” he added.
He said job creation, in the party’s view, ought to be of overriding concern to a government and that Ghanaians needed their leaders to think about how jobs could be created for them.