Presidential hopeful and Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, has slammed former Chief Executive officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and presidential hopeful, Sylvester Mensah, saying he is inexperienced and not prepared to be president.

According to him, he [Sylvester Mensah] lacks the clout for the job, since he has not really and fully gone through the ranks but only observed from afar.

“He became Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance, he did very well, the record he left there is good, I went with him as minister for health to a number of international conferences and usually he will do his presentation before I do my presentation, to showcase Ghana`s health sector and that was year I got the best minister of the year 2012. So he is good but he is not up.

There is something we call in life preparation; some people use the term grooming, some people use the term pupillage, you need to go through it, experiential learning, not the book learning” he added.

Speaking to delegates of the party in the Volta region as part of his campaign, he believes the best person to lead the NDC into the 2020 general elections must be one who has all the experience and understanding of how governance works.

Mr Bagbin, a leading contender for the opposition National Democratic Congress’ 2020 presidential ticket, stated that he has been there and has seen it all and therefore qualifies as the right person to lead the party.

So far, about seven members of the NDC have expressed their intent to contest the race to lead the party ahead of the 2020 general elections. Among the seven include former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah and former Vice Chancellor of the University for Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Prof. Joshua Alabi, as well as former Trades Minister, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah among others.

Meanwhile, former President John Dramani Mahama is yet to make a declaration on his return as the party’s candidate for the 2020 polls per the directive issued by the NDC party.