Group call for IMC for PNC

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday November 19, 2010
A GROUP calling itself the Concerned Group of the Peoples’ National Convention (PNC) is agitating for an Interim Management Committee (IMC) to manage the party’s affairs until the next delegates’ congress to elect national officers.

According to the group, the composition of a National Executive Committee (NEC) and Standing Committee currently running the affairs of the party are illegal and unconstitutional.

A statement issued in Accra and signed by Bernard Bama-ame, Secretary of the group said those holding themselves as NEC executives have breached Articles 43 and 49 of the PNC’s constitution which says that such officers shall hold office for a term not less than the life of Parliament.

They claimed Dr. Edward Nasigre Mahama who has been the party’s presidential candidate since 1996 is violating Article 49 (1) and (2) of the PNC constitution by continuing to hold himself out as leader and as presidential candidate saying “It follows as a matter of logic that Dr. Mahama cannot be a member of the Standing Committee or chair a meeting of the committee as a leader of the party.”

“All sub committees of the party as provided under Article 58 of the party’s constitution which were set up by a meeting chaired by Dr. Edward N. Mahama is unconstitutional and illegal. Consequently all actions or decisions taken by any of those committees are illegal and null and void.”

They said “by the same line of argument, Dr. Edward N. Mahama cannot sit as a member of the National Executive Committee since he is not qualified to be a leader of the party. Therefore he continuing to sit as a member of the NEC constitutes a deliberate and reckless disregard of our own party constitution and should not be tolerated and condoned by any member of the party since we cannot run a party in violation of our own laws and that of the country.”

“We should not permit continuing reckless violations of our party’s constitution. We are further encouraged and emboldened to end this illegality by a comment of both the chairman, Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan and Dr. Edward Nasigre Mahama, the purported Chairman and Leader at a purported NEC held on Friday 5th November 2010, at the Party Headquarters in Accra, to the effect that at the next NEC meeting scheduled for Saturday November 27, 2010, any and all ineligible or unqualified NEC members would be flushed out.”

The group invited all PNC members to take “all reasonable and legitimate steps” to rectify the “constitutional defect” adding “in the alternative, we suggest that an Interim Management Committee be set up to run the affairs of the party until the next national congress to elect national officers as mandated by the party’s constitution.”