The governing
New Patriotic Party (NPP) has dissociated itself from any presidential debate
the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) intends to hold ahead of the
December 7 general election.
According to the NPP, the NCCE has not had any
prior engagements with the party on the matter and has, therefore, breached
courtesy by publicly announcing its plans for such a debate.
The NCCE Director of Public Affairs, Mrs Joyce
Afutu, was reported to have announced that the commission would organise three
Presidential Candidates’ Debate in three zones: Northern, Middle and Southern
in September, October and November in collaboration with Ghana Broadcasting
Corporation (GBC).
The Commission would also organise Parliamentary
Candidates’ Debate in all 275 constituencies and undertake door to door/dawn
and dusk broadcast on voter turn-out from September to December.
Reacting to this, the NPP statement signed by
General Secretary John Boadu said: “The NPP is completely unaware of the claims
by the NCCE, and, therefore, cannot be said to be a party to any such
arrangements.”
“The NCCE has, at no point, engaged the NPP and
its leadership in any conversation regarding the Commission’s intention to
organise any debates involving the party’s presidential candidate in the
buildup to election 2020. The NPP has also not made any solicitation to the
NCCE to this effect.”
“It is, therefore, surprising and mindboggling
that the NCCE, not having had any prior engagements with the party on the
matter, would go ahead to announce to the world that it had scheduled to hold
three presidential debates in the months of September, October, and December
among all the presidential candidates,” the statement said.
The statement added that beyond the fact that
the NCCE’s action “is in clear breach of courtesy and standard practice,” the
Commission also has no inkling of the NPP’s calendar of activities for the
party’s 2020 electioneering campaign.
To this end, the NPP emphasised that it
dissociates itself from the purported ‘presidential debates schedules’
announced by the NCCE, and appealed to the Commission not to include the NPP in
the arrangements unless and until the party so permits.
-classfmonline.com
