News:
August 18, 2014
The internal strife in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) appears to be deepening with MP for Tema East, daring the General Secretary to attempt to remove his name from the list of party communicators.
The opposition party’s General Secretary, Kwabena Agyei Agyapong, has been under fire from party executive and supporters over the unpopular decision to remove officers serving in various capacities.
The latest to fall on Mr Agyapong’s sword is Acting Director of Communications, Perry Okudzeto, who was last Friday asked to proceed on two years’ accumulated leave.
The directive followed a similar one to the Director of Finance, Opare Hammond, removing him from office, which some executive council members are challenging.
The directive to Mr. Okudzeto to proceed on leave has angered many in the NPP.
Speaking on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Monday, the MP for Tema East, Daniel Nii Kwatei Titus-Glover said the move was unacceptable and injures the party’s constitution.
“If you have such behaviors…you don’t expect to have the support of your steering committee members,” he said
Mr. Titus-Glover suspects the changes being made reflect a grand plan to give an advantage to one of the contenders in the party’s flagbearership race, Alan Kyerematen.
He therefore wants the General Secretary to be checked as a matter of urgency or the party risks suffering colosal defeat in the next general elections.
“If we don’t reverse this decision, the next to follow are Director of Elections, Agyei Mensah Korsah and the Director of International Relations, Martin Owiredu.
“In this time that you are working so hard to come to power you are telling your deputy director who is acting for you, to proceed on leave,” he wondered.
The MP also claimed he had credible information suggesting that Mr. Agyapong plans to remove his name from the list of the NPP’s communications team.
“I’m told that he [Agyapong] doesn’t want to see my face…and he wants to take my name out of the communications list. I was a member of the communications team when he was working at the Castle…and today if he wants to take my name out of the communications list, I dare him”, the MP stated.
Expressing similar sentiments on the Show, the Coordinator of the Nasara Club of the NPP, Kamal-Deen Abdulai said the General Secretary is dealing with trivial matters such as removing party officers and making new appointments without consulting the National Executive Council.
Kamal-Deen wants Kwabena Agyapong to concentrate on organizing the special delegates’ congress in October to prune the number of candidates in the flagbearership race from seven (7) to five (5).
Being the first time the party would be organizing such forum as a precursor to the national deleates’ congress, the focus of the General Secretary and for that matter the National Chairman, Paul Afoko, should be on how to organize it successfully, the Nasara Coordinator advised.
“Kwabena Agyapong is occupying himself with trivialities…We have never had a single steering committee meeting to discuss how the special delegate’s congress should be conducted,” he regretted.
He insisted that the General Secretary’s actions contravened the constitutional provisions of the NPP which require him to take advice from the NEC and Steering Committee in all actions.