Mr. Dan Lartey, the presidential candidate of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) has accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of having too many ministers. He said a GCPP led government will need just nineteen ministers to run the country.

“We do not need to bring so many ministers, what I will do is to change what is in there, from a hundred to a manageable number of 19.”

For this reason, Mr Lartey told the ADM that his party is bringing people who would be coming to work and produce. “As at now the GCPP has lined up potential people to be nominated as ministers, it means that we are ready to go into government” he said. He could not tell the ADM which Ministry he is avoiding and which to include in his government. On the just ended National Delegates Congress of the GCPP, he said his party has been vindicated by the Electoral Commission (EC) in relation to media reports that his affirmation as presidential candidate of the party was illegal. “The EC has come out of a press conference some days ago that the congress is legal and has legally elected its presidential candidate.”

Buttressing his claim with a Daily Graphic publication of Friday 13th June 2008 headlined “Dan Lartey can hold himself up as GCPP flag bearer,” which said that “…although the EC was not present to supervise the elections, Mr. Dan Lartey can hold himself up as GCPP presidential candidate.”

He said “I am happy that the Chairman of the EC Dr. Afari Gyan has cleared the air…We did the right thing by going to congress, the person who spoke about the congress was a not an accredited EC member, he was a clerk, who should have not gone that far to talk about electoral affairs in the country” he told the ADM.

It may be recalled that a little over eighty people including journalists and observers on June 7 attended a congress at the Prempeh Assembly Hall in Kumasi that elected the octogenarian politician for the third time as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2008 December elections.About his running mate, he said “I am yet to consider who my running mate will be, it is a serious work which we are coming to do in government, we are very sure the people in the country want a change from the IMF run government in this country…within the next few weeks we should be able to decide.”

When pushed further for likely names, he ended with the trite “yes but errh…I would rather be silent on that until I meet the national executives of the party.” According to him, the GCPP is enjoying fair media coverage and can presently say that the party has been positively projected a move he describes as good for the party’s victory.