The General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Justin Frimpong Kodua, has stressed the need for a standing platform aimed at synergising government and party activities to facilitate victory in 2024 general elections.
He noted that lack of such synergy could be the reason for the party’s inability to sustain the huge gap between it and the opposition National Democratic Congress in the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.
He stressed that reigniting that relationship is therefore imperative in developing healthy party-government engagements.
The NPP General Secretary said this yesterday when the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, paid a visit to the national officers and staff of NPP at the party’s headquarters at Asylum Down.
According to him, it is in the party’s interest to sustain such a programme in helping unite and mobilise its rank and file for a third consecutive electoral victory in 2024, and a sustained strategy for a long term success of the party.
Mr Kodua Frimpong, who received the Minister, on behalf of National Executives of the party, commended the Minister for making time to visit the party headquarters, despite his busy schedule.
He sought information from the Minister on some of the interventions being implemented by his ministry to enhance the living standards of the Ghanaian youth, as well as for sports development.
Response
Responding, Mr Mustapha Ussif disclosed that nearly 75% of the country’s 31.8 million population falls within the youthful bracket, hence government’s commitment to implementing several youth-centred interventions.
He mentioned interventions such as YouStart, Green Ghana, various modules of the Youth Employment Agency, COVET, among others, as having culminated in the employment, training, capacity building and the provision of financial support to thousands of the country’s youth.
Mr Mustapha Ussif further urged the party to liaise with the appropriate government officials and agencies supervising these youth-centred interventions to complement the success of such interventions.
He also encouraged the party to emulate the youth structures of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress which, he said, had been crucial to the party’s long stay in power.
In his concluding remarks, the NPP General Secretary thanked the Youth and Sports Minister for his time. He reiterated that this initiative of holding regular party-government meetings will be replicated across the country, particularly in the regional capitals.
The overall objective, he said, is to provide a platform for government appointees, particularly Ministers of State and CEOs, to interact with party officers and grassroots at all levels.
As part of this initiative, the previous weeks had witnessed a visit to the party’s headquarters by some government appointees. They included the CEO of Ghana Water Company Limited, Dr. Clifford Braimah, and the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor. Other appointees are expected to have their turn in the coming weeks.
Engagement necessary
The Deputy Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, recently cautioned that the NPP could hand a windfall victory to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the next elections, if MPs and appointees of the party failed to engage with their constituents, and allay their frustrations.
He explained that research from civil society organisations had shown that the citizenry had a lot of bottled-up frustration and pent-up feeling against the government as a result of the economy’s trajectory in recent times.
“If not managed appropriately, the situation can manifest in the elections, and the way to avert it is constant engagement with constituents to explain the current circumstances and what the government is doing, while also listening to issues that affect them,” Mr Afenyo-Markin asserted.
