Freddie Blay – Ag NPP Chairman
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), after its successful national delegates’ conference in Cape Coast, Central Region, has constituted an eleven-member ad-hoc committee to consider a number of proposals submitted to the party for the amendment of its constitution.
The proposals would then be put before an extra-ordinary conference in December for adoption.
Inaugurating the committee – to be chaired by the acting national vice chairman of the party, Frederick Fredua Anto – at the party’s headquarters yesterday, the acting general secretary, John Boadu, said the committee would have to use two months to complete its work and present a report in the form of a draft constitution to the National Council which would in turn send it to the national conference for consideration and adoption.
The membership of the committee, who are crack lawyers in the party, include O.B. Amoah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, secretary; Godfred Yeboah Dame, Deputy Attorney-General; Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, another Deputy Attorney-General; Ben Abdallah Banda, Chairman of the Committee of Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs in Parliament; Joyce Boateng, former NPP parliamentary aspirant for Nkawkaw and Richard Asante Yeboah.
The rest are Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, an elder of the party; Antwi Agyei, another elder; Agnes Okudzeto and Joyce Agyemang Attafuah.
Mr John Boadu said members of the committee were carefully chosen because most of the proposals border on legal issues; and with the addition of other party members who have rich knowledge and experience in party organisation, he had no doubt that the committee would come out with a very good report that would serve the best interest of the party.
“Per the resolution of the national conference, this ad-hoc committee has two months within which to present its final report to the party. What it means is that, the committee is supposed to present its report to the General Secretary not later than November 15, this year,” Mr Boadu said, stressing that at a National Council meeting on Wednesday at Alisa Hotel in Accra, it resolved that two weeks after the receipt of the committee’s report, it would reconvene to consider the report and then two weeks afterwards, an extraordinary delegates’ conference would be organised solely for the purpose of considering and adopting the report, which is a new draft constitution.
“All things being equal, we are looking at having this extraordinary conference sometime in the middle of December this year,” the acting general secretary said.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr