The leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) must make the report compiled by the Kwesi Botchwey committee available to every member of the party, Mike Hammah, a former Minister of Transport, has said.
According to him, ensuring transparency in the discussion of the report will restore confidence among party members and ensure it makes inroads in the next general elections.
The committee submitted its report to the party on Monday June 19 at the party’s headquarters in Accra.
In presenting the report, Prof Botchwey said: “We did a very comprehensive job of listening to everybody.
“Everybody spoke frankly and honestly. We do make a number of recommendations including a recommendation that the party put together a group of credible and eminent members of our party to undertake a peace-making and healing tour of the country and visit all key sectors and constituencies. We believe this is extremely important for purposes of creating the necessary conditions for any serious work that needs to be done in the way of the party restructuring and renewal.
“We also have a recommendation that the party take steps to restore the integrity of the biometric register and the expanded Electoral College. Additionally, we recommend that steps be taken to restore the capacity and effectiveness of the party’s organs, especially to the branch level. We believe these organs are most critical because they are the party’s immediate connections with the people. We are, after all, a truly mass party.
“We also have recommendations on ways in which we can and must improve the collation of election results. We also believe that steps ought to be taken by the party to reconnect itself properly to our social democratic roots and the principal actors in these social democratic roots – the social forces that populate our social democratic base.
Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM on Tuesday June 20, Mr Hammah, former MP for Effutu, said: “Let’s be truthful, and transparent in the discussion of this report. And if we follow the recommendations of the report through and through, then we can make inroads in the next elections.
“NDC was born out of revolution. We need to go back to the grassroots because it was the grassroots that formed the party, and so we need to go back to them and strengthen them. The structures of the party are also important. If we are able to strengthen our structures, there is no election in Ghana that NDC can’t win. So we need to ensure grassroots mobilisation.”
When asked whether ex-President John Mahama has a chance of leading the party again into the next elections, he said: “That will depend on the grassroots and so we need to strengthen the grassroots participation.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
