General News of Thursday, 21 November 2019
Source: kasapafmonline.com
The District Chief Executive for Kwahu East Mr. Isaac Agyapong today provided a video to confirm the opposition National Democratic Congress has been involved in the process leading to the referendum and actually pushed for a YES vote.
The video captured the Deputy National Youth Organizer of the NDC Eric Agbanah who spoke on behalf of the party declared their stance on the referendum for yes vote.
A platform was given to some MMDCEs in the Eastern Region on Nkawkaw based Agoo FM to educate the public on the referendum which is slated for 17th December 2019.
The Hon(s) MCE for Kwahu West Lawyer Yaw Owusu Addo, DCE for Kwahu East Mr. Isaac Agyapong, DCE for Kwahu South Mr. Emmanuel Attah Ofori Snr and DCE for Birem North Mr Raymond Nana Damptey were present to share their views.
The General Secretary of the party Johnson Asiedu Nketia speaking to Kwame Koranteng on the same platform Wednesday denied ever meeting stakeholders to discuss the referendum.
According to him the NPP as a party failed to engage the various stakeholders and cautioned them to provide evidence of any meeting held of that sort.
The DCE Mr Isaac Agyapong backed his point on the program with a video of the NDC Eric Agbana who during a stakeholder meeting held with IDEG and NCCE explained the party position on the referendum.
In the said video, Eric Agbana said; “Thank you Madam Chairman and all protocol duly observed. I represent the National Democratic Congress (NDC), most especially the General Secretary, Hon. Johnson Asiedu Nketia.This is one of the few topics that both the NDC and the NPP seem to be in agreement so I would not want to talk too much about the advantages of having a multi-party election at the local assemblies.
However, our concern as the National Democratic Congress is that, yes, we are for a referendum to have a multi-party election. But if we are all interested in the outcome of the referendum and we are all asking our members to go for a ‘yes’, we should also be interested in the processes leading to the referendum.
“The Electoral Commission and its activities cannot be excluded from this process.
Not too long ago, we had one referendum which decided the creation of new regions and we believe as a party and we still strongly hold the view that the processes were compromised, the elections was compromised.”
He added: “The process with regards to registration of members, the exhibition of voter register and the conduct of the election itself is very critical to this process.
“So we are urging all the stakeholders here that let us not only be interested in the outcome of the referendum, we should also be interested in ensuring that the processes leading to the outcome of the referendum are free and fair and that is why we are asking all of you to not only be a partner in calling for the multi-party democracy at the local level but you should also partner as in ensuring that the Electoral Commission in its conducts of all the activities and processes leading to any election is free and fair and that is the position of the NDC.
“We are urging our members and we have asked all our members to also go for a ‘YES’ when the opportunity presents itself.”
But Spokesperson for the Association of former MMDCEs and former DCE for Sekyere Afram Plains Mr. Fuseini Donkor on the same platform said the NPP is not doing exactly what they engaged the various parties.