The National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Mornah, has said the appointment of their party leader, Dr Edward Mahama, as an Ambassador-at-Large by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is ‘killing’ the PNC.
Blaming the current passiveness of the PNC on the appointment of their leader into office by the NPP government, Mr Mornah said the situation had marred the smooth running of the PNC and had brought many challenges on them as executives of the party.
“Dr Mahama is the leader of the party. As we speak, that is the constitution of our party, so being the leader of the party, it is obvious that he has taken the party to the NPP,” Bernard Mornah told the Daily Graphic.
In 2017, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, appointed the leader of the PNC, Dr Edward Mahama, as an Ambassador-at-Large, making him a diplomat of the highest rank with special duties and can represent the country anywhere internationally.
No interest
In an interview with the Daily Graphic last Wednesday, the Chairman indicated that since the position was bestowed on their leader, Dr Mahama had appeared not to show interest in the administration of the PNC, adding that for the past four months, the party had not been able to hold any meetings because he (the leader) was always on assignments and so meeting always must be held at his convenience, and he as not relinquished his position.
“Let’s imagine even if he comes for a meeting and we discuss key strategies that we will use to topple the NPP government in the 2020 election, after he leaves the meeting and the President calls him and ask about what transpired in the meeting, can he truly tell the President that he went to strategise on how to topple his party in 2020? And will he betray us by divulging the strategies we have adopted? He owes the President his utmost fidelity and I think Dr Mahama is better as leader of PNC or better as Ambassador- at- Large,” he added.
Party report
Mr Mornah stated that in July last year, the party set up a committee to make a report on the 2016 election.
He said the committee was given one month to submit its report because they wanted to go for an early congress.
He said the secretary of the committee called on him to present the report but he insisted that it was a party report and for that matter all the executive needed to be present to receive the report.
He added that he called Dr Mahama to inform him and he (Dr Mahama) told him to call for National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting for the report to be presented.
“It was imprudent to call a NEC meeting in the month of Ramadan when the bulk of our people are Muslims and most of them are from the Northern part of the country, they will have to travel for 13 hours to get to Accra and go back in the same manner, I had to insist that we postpone the NEC meeting because in doing it means we are not sensitive to their situation and that wouldn’t help the party. I have communicated to him that it is not fair,” he stressed.
“Even other executives in the party need to have a first glance at the document and possibly note down what was relevant in the report before the NEC meeting. We don’t expect them to receive a report and discuss the content for implementation the same day but it is very worrying that this is the position of the leader and now he is not even available for us to go and receive the report as leaders of the party,” he added.
Unconcerned
Mr Mornah expressed worry over how the party appeared unconcerned about the current happenings in the country, stating that several activities had taken place including the Vice-President’s Town Hall Meeting and the state of insecurity in the country “and yet the active PNC party that we all know has not decided on their stance on all these major happenings in the country; we have not even issued a statement on any of them”.
Financial support
He further revealed that the leader had also not been supportive financially to enable them to run the affairs of the party, adding that even looking for funding had also become a challenge.
“The support is not coming and when we go and request for support from our stakeholders, they tell us our leader is in government and he is in the best position to help,” he added.
Daily Graphic