Muntaka: Decision to change Minority leadership is from few individuals
The Member of Parliament for Asawasi in Kumasi, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka says the minority leadership were not consulted before the announcement of their removal from office, neither was the entire parliamentary caucus also consulted.
At a press conference in Accra Thursday, Muntaka said it was a decision by some people in the party and the General Secretary went ahead and wrote a letter to that effect.
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He argued that the right thing to do was to have consulted the entire minority caucus before any decision of that nature had been taken since the party cannot just sit somewhere and appoint leaders for MPs.
"I serve on NEC (National Executive Committee), I serve on FEC (Functional Executive Committee), I go to Council of Elders as an observer and I am also on the political committee as an observer. Congress, all of us as members of parliament are members of congress and the Minority Leader is also on all these levels."
"At no such meeting, was there any agenda to discuss this, so it is clear that it is a letter just written by the General Secretary, but the decision will just be the decision of some few people in the party and we believe that our party should sit up, because Article 55 of the 1992 Constitution is very clear, it says that everything that we do, we must follow democratic principles.
"We were never consulted. I mean, I heard some officers saying that some elders were sent to talk to us".
"I would be be very happy to be mentioning which elder was sent to me to talk to me, because no elder spoke to me," he said.
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Mr Muntaka said they were concerned that the decision taken was not from the party but a decision of some individuals, a few people in the party.
Below are snippets of Muntaka's statement at the press conference
"We are equally concerned that the letters that were issued were not the decision of the party.
"Our party as NDC has four decision making groups. First the Congress where all delegates meet to take decisions, second is the National Executive Committee (NEC), and then third is the Function Executive Committee.
"It is when this group take a decision then you get the General Secretary and the principal officers implement.
"Then we also have the Council of Elders, even though our constitution say that they are advisory, sometimes periodically they also give directions and then the party tries to implement.
"I serve on NEC, I serve on FEC, I go to Council of Elders as an observer and I am also on the political committee as an observer. Congress, all of us as members of parliament are members of congress and the Minority Leader is also on all these levels.
"At no such meeting, was there any agenda to discuss this, so it is clear that it is a letter just written by the General Secretary, but the decision will just be the decision of some few people in the party and we believe that our party should sit up, because Article 55 of the 1992 Constitution is very clear, it says that everything that we do, we must follow democratic principles.
"So we want to urge the General Secretary, and the most shocking part of it is that, we were not consulted. I mean I heard some officers saying that some elders were sent to talk to us".
"I would be be very happy to be mentioning which elder was sent to me to talk to me, because no elder spoke to me."
"And then without casting any insinuation and also creating doubt in the capability of our colleagues, Honourable Ato Forson, Honourable Kwame Agbodza and Honourable Armah Kofi Buah, these are our colleagues and we should be working very closely together.
Myself, Honourable Avedzi and the leader (Haruna) himself, we will have to be grateful to this caucus, any day that they decide, we've had enough of you, maybe we want to change direction, we want to change energy, we will be thankful for the opportunity given us."
In 2021 the party... came to our caucus meeting and suggested names were 'seived' and I remember very well, the first question they asked the general caucus was do you want to retain your leadership or you want to change them, and there was a loud applause that we want to maintain them, and even that they said they wanted to be sure because there were some other names that were also coming up.
Each regional caucus was asked to go back and having the names that had come up, consider their choice, seal it in an envelop and give it to the national party, which is exactly what happened. So it was taken to the political committee, it was summarised and then there was another caucus meeting to announce the decision from the various 16 regional caucuses, I want to say that this is consultation, and this a caucus electing its leaders.
"I'm sorry to say, you have youth organisers in our party, they need to elect their leaders, women organisers meet to elect their leaders, and it is shocking for Parliamentarians to be told that leaders are chosen for them.
"I have served, this was my third term in the leadership, there was not a single time that I was written to that I have been appointed as so and so to serve in any capacity.
And do you know natural justice and the laws of our country, if you cannot write a letter to appoint, how can you write a letter to dis-appoint. We don't want this controversy at this time, or the letter to dismiss.
I want to also remind some of officers about our national constitution, Article 296, where when discretion is given you, that discretion, how it should be exercised, so we don't want to create enmity among us unnecessarily but we believe that the right process should be done, and believe me, if the right process is done, you will come to the caucus, the regional caucuses will resolve that they want to change their leaders.., we will be very happy and thank them for the opportunity to serve... because we took over from others.
Our plea is that when this petition gets to the Council of Elders, we hope that they will help fast track a reconciliation meeting that will help us to resolve all this before Parliament resumes so that we don't have to saddle ourselves with this controversy, when NPP is really messing up completely. There are so many issues that we need to focus on, this is not the time for us to be focusing on the internal division among ourselves, I don't think this is healthy.
Writer's email: [email protected]
