NPP UK & Ireland paid for NPP International Conference – official
Lens is a morally corrupt media

Our attention has been drawn to news reporting by the Lens newspaper entitled “Taxpayers Money Used for NPP Conference” and wish to swiftly rebut it and categorically state that it is as another falsehood based on the irresponsibility that has characterized Mr. Victor Smith’s newspaper, The Lens.

Save as the 1st NPP International Conference was organised in London on the 16th and 17th of March 2007 and attended by delegates from all over the world, we in NPP UK and Ireland wish to state clearly for the benefit of all discerning readers that:

1. The Conference was funded by NPP UK and Ireland solely.

2. The conference was financed from the Fund-raising dinner dance organised on the night of 16th March 2007 and from the branch’s coffers.

3. No tax payer’s money was involved and that this is part of a dishonest campaign by a section of people to discredit the hard won reputation gained by the NPP in organizing its first international conference.

4. The Ghana High Commission did not fund or contribute to the funding of the Conference.

5. The brochure mentioned by Lens was that for both the dinner dance and the conference.

6. We provided the names of a cross section of supporters of the dinner dance which included every major organisation we had invited to come and support us and this included the Ghana High Commission.

7. A “supporter” does not mean a “funder” and that the Ghana High Commission did not fund or assist NPP UK in anyway in raising funds for the Conference.

8. The Ghana High Commission or the High Commissioner for that matter does not involve in partisan politics, certainly not in NPP politics.

We in NPP UK and Ireland are accordingly seeking legal advice about this irresponsible reporting which is intended to reduce us in the estimation of the right thinking members of the Ghanaian society.

We wish to warn Victor Smith and his bogus newspaper about their irresponsible reporting and we treat it with the contempt it deserves. This is not the first time that the Lens has concocted stories of this nature to abuse press freedom we are all enjoying under the current political dispensation facilitated by President Kufuor’s government. We in the NPP UK and Ireland are aware of the Lens’ agenda to misinform and wish to state to all discerning reading public that we have never used and will never use the High Commission or the High Commissioner for that matter to further our political cause. We are too mature for that.

Perhaps the owners of the Lens would know that a few years ago the High Commission in London was the haven for NDC activities. Those days are gone and hopefully for ever. We wish the Lens to know that we are fully well aware of the difference between a High Commission or an Embassy and a political party and we do not need their so called “political analysts” or retired diplomats to school us about that. Perhaps if the retired diplomat was a P/NDC appointee he or she could put his or her hand on their heart and admit if the P/NDC knew the difference between embassies or high commissions and their party.

And a word of advice to Mr. Victor Smith and his Lens gutter press - because of your senseless vituperations your own NDC have disowned you and therefore you should not think that the Ghana High Commission or NPP UK is a soft target. Your “boom boom” accusations have not found favour even with your own kind.

We in UK are a descent group and we do not live off tax payer’s money like you and your masters do.

We in NPP UK wish to apologise to the Ghana High Commission in UK for any inconvenience caused them by this perjured publication by Lens – the gutter press.