Politics of Tuesday, 24 August 2004

Source: GNA

NPP to hold its national congress in Kumasi

Kumasi, Aug. 24, GNA- The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is to hold its National Congress in Kumasi from September 17 to September 19, Mr Haruna Esseku, NPP National Chairman, has announced.

The Congress, he said, would be climaxed with a mammoth rally at which all the Party's endorsed parliamentary candidates would be introduced.

Mr Esseku was addressing a special delegates' congress held by the Subin constituency of the NPP to affirm Mr Sampson Kwaku Boafo, the sitting Member of Parliament (MP), who is also the Ashanti Regional Minister, as the Parliamentary Candidate for the constituency on Sunday in Kumasi.

The NPP National chairman appealed for calm among all parliamentary aspirants who lost at the primaries, saying: "This should not make you think that it is the end of the world."

He reminded them that they still had crucial roles to play to bring total victory to the NPP in the December polls. Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, said he was confident of the Party's first round victory, stating that, there would be no runoff.

He said there was every indication that judging the Government by its good works, Ghanaians would vote massively to renew its mandate. The Minister of Regional Integration and NEPAD, Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, spoke of the need to maintain a strong and united front and to avoid intra-party feuding.

He told members of the Party that the minority parties were no threat to the Party.

Dr Apraku said although the NPP Government might not have been able to fulfil all expectations of the people, its achievement had been "most remarkable and won for the nation international respect and admiration".

Miss Elizabeth Ohene, Minister of State for Tertiary Education, gave the assurance that she would win the Ho West Constituency Parliamentary Seat for the NPP, come this year's elections.

"If the NPP would not win any seat at all in the Volta Region, it is not that of the Ho West", she declared.