BA NPP TO HOLD CONGRESS (SEPT 16, PAGE 16)

The Brong Ahafo Regional Branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will hold its regional congress to elect new executives to run the affairs of the party for two years on November 7, this year.
The positions to be contested for are: Chairman, First and Second Vice Chairmen, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer, Organiser, Women and Youth Organisers.
The regional congress will finally be followed by the national congress on December 19, 2009 when there will be election of national officers for the party.
Mr Anthony Kusi, the Regional Secretary of the party, told the Daily Graphic in Sunyani.
He said the regional congress would be preceded by reorganisation and polling station elections.
He said the process would start with the enrolment of all members of the party within the polling stations in the region.
At the moment, he said all the polling stations had started recording members names which would be completed by September 20.
“After the list of members have been compiled at the various polling stations, their validation will take place from September 25 to 27, 2009,” he added.
Mr Kusi said the enlistment of members at the polling station level was being carried out by the various polling station executives under the supervision of the constituency executives.
That, he added, would be followed by the opening of nomination for the selection of a new five-member polling station executive committee for the various polling stations across the region.
Having got the polling station executives in place, Mr Kusi said it would be followed by the constituency elections from October 17 to November 7, this year.
Asked when nominations for the regional positions would be opened, Mr Kusi said this would be done after the re-organisation at the polling stations and the constituencies.
He called on party supporters to remain calm and resolute in the face of extreme provocation from members and functionaries of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
According to him, there were no or factionalism cracks in the party, as was being alleged by a section of the media. He said that was being used as a propaganda by the ruling government.
He also advised party faithful to close their ranks and work hard towards the recapturing of power in 2012.
Meanwhile grapevine sources have it that certain leading members of the party in the region such as a former Minister of Local Government and Rural Development and former Member of Parliament for Sunyani West, Mr Kwadwo Adjei Darko; a Sunyani-based legal practitioner, Mr Asoma Cheremeh; and a Sunyani-based businessman, Mr Frank Opoku Adjapong, are all gunning for the Chairmanship while the incumbent Chairman, Mr Kwesi Adu Gyan, is also said to have stepped up his bid to retain the position.
The source said some of the people whose names had come up to contest for the various regional positions have started visiting the rank and file of the party at the polling stations and constituencies to interact with them.