The vice-presidential nominee of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, will deliver a lecture today, Thursday September 8, on the theme ‘The State of the Ghanaian Economy – A Foundation of Concrete or Straw?’
The event will be held at the National Theatre. It was initially planned for the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) but the Centre turned down the request on the eve of the programme, prompting suspicions from Dr Bawumia’s camp that the government was up to no good.
In a statement signed by Kwabena Boadu, Dr Bawumia’s office said it “wishes to notify the general public that the venue for Thursday’s public lecture has been moved from the Accra International Conference Centre as earlier advertised to the National Theatre, Accra”.
“The change in venue follows a decision by the managers of the Conference Centre (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to deny organisers of the programme the use of the facility 24 hours to the public lecture, despite earlier assurances and two days (last week Wednesday and this Monday 5th September) of technical meetings and arrangements between the organisers and technical men at the Centre, which concluded on among others, the technical set-up for the event,” the statement said, adding that the event would be chaired by former President John Agyekum Kufuor.”
Meanwhile, the government has said it has nothing to do with AICC’s refusal in allowing the lecture to come off at the facility.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Dr Emmanuel Bombande told Moro Awudu on Inside Politics on Wednesday September 7 on Class91.3FM in an interview that the government and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had no interest in dabbling in such “petty” politics.
“Why would we do that?” he asked in response to insinuations by Dr Bawumia’s spokesperson Anthony Karbo that the government might have been behind the development.
Dr Bombande said rather than stifling the NPP vice presidential nominee, the government and the NDC were rather interested in hearing what their opponents had to say as the country heads towards the December polls.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
