Editorial News of Monday, 22 March 1999

Source: --

Public Agenda

The paper says less than two years to the next general elections, the Ashanti Regional branch of the NDC seems to be in deep trouble. According to the Public Agenda, this was forcefully brought to the fore last month, when the party's functionaries in the region reportedly took advantage of a meeting of their party's regional caucus to voice out deep-seated discontent that has bee building up since the last elections. In a front page banner headline: "Ashanti NDC faces revolt", the paper says the party General Secretary, Huudu Yahaya, the Regional Minister, Kojo Yankah, Presidential aides from the Castle and other big wigs in the region and Accra, who attended the meeting in Kumasi, came under an unexpected barrage of frank and hard talk as the functionaries complained bitterly about the lack of recognition and remuneration for their contribution towards the NDC's achievements in the region, where it records the worst electoral performance. According to the paper top on the agenda of the meeting held on February 28, was how to re-organise the party in the Ashanti Region towards the the year 2000 elections. The Public Agenda quotes reports as indicating that the meeting held at the residence of the Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive, Nana Akwasi Agyeman, currently embroiled in a struggle to succeed the late Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, had its fair share of fireworks as functionaries insisted that they had sacrificed for far too long and made it clear that they would no longer do any organisational work for free.