Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu questions relevance of regional party executives

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has questioned the relevance of regional executives of political parties.

In his view, their role was redundant except during elections, arguing that the main job is done at the polling station, constituency levels.

He believes that these structures are catalysts for corruption since prospective candidates have to brie their way through to get the various positions.

Speaking at the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs engagement with political parties on Monetization of politics in Ghana – A focus on Solutions, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said “so, colleagues let’s look at the way we are resorting to elections, to select the leaders of our party from polling stations though electoral areas.

"And then we have constituency and then we have regions, then we have the national party, elections at every level.”

“Yet, we know that even at polling stations, the grassroots level, people have to be paying some kola and buying drinks, even there to get elected as polling station secretary, chairman, women organizer, where from this?”

“We are doing a complete disservice to ourselves and we pretend that nothing is wrong with it. When we come out in the open, nobody wants to admit to it because he/she wants to profit from the existing structures.”

He indicated that “I’m aware of article 55 (5). I’m also aware of article 55 (9) which provides that the national executive officers should be chosen from all the regions.”

“By extensive reasoning, if you come to the regional executives, I honestly do not think that apart from the purpose of coordinating the affairs of various constituency parties, I’m not even too sure of the relevance of the regional party structures.”

“In elections, they may be coordinating campaigns, apart from that what do they do? Because the real stuff is at the polling station level, the constituency level, The regional executives, what do they do, tell me? And even there people have to pay to get elected. Are we begin candid with ourselves?” he quizzed.