According to the former Central Regional Minister, tensions within the party which have surfaced since their disappointing loss in the 2016 general elections, were being fueled by the uncertainty about the contents of the report which was compiled detailing the reasons for their defeat.

[contextly_sidebar id=”tDAuA6adsXW8pTdr9Iht3D3Zts7j79am”]The National leadership of the party tasked a special Committee led by Prof. Kwesi Botchwey to tour the country to listen to concerns of party members.

However, since the Committee completed its work, various supposed leaked contents of their final report have added to the animosity within the party, despite the attempts by several senior officials to brand the document as fake.

According to Ricketts-Hagan, releasing the report only to the members of the NDC would help ease the unrest that appears to be building within the opposition party as it seeks to reorganize ahead of the polls in 2020.

“I will appeal to our leadership that I think it’s about time that the Dr. Kwesi Botchway report which is under lock and key, is released to the party. I’m not talking about making it public, but  all the faithful of the 275 constituencies should see this report so that no one would have to travel anywhere, passing on sentiments already in the report.  It is creating so many problems that rather it is distracting us from what we should be doing,” he said.

Ricketts Hagan was speaking on Citi FM‘s news analysis programme, The Big Issue, in response to a statement issued by the ten regional chairmen of the NDC who had paid a visit to former President John Dramani Mahama to convey the desire from party members within their areas for him to run for President in 2020.

Hasty endorsements could hurt Mahama’s ambitions – Ricketts-Hagan

He stated that the decision by the chairmen to publicly declare their backing for the former president was unfortunate “especially when we are trying to heal after such disastrous elections where blame is being apportioned to everyone.”

Releasing the Botchwey report, he believes, would render actions such as theirs unnecessary as the sentiments and wishes of the party’s grassroots would be known by all.

“We are looking at rebuilding and reinvigorating the party. We have people who say that they are chairmen and are going to express the sentiments of their people.  Dr. Kwesi Botchway’s report was supposed to have captured all the sentiments that were out there, including the feelings, thoughts and beliefs of the people as to why the elections went wrong. These sentiments that the chairmen went to express to John Mahama, if the report was available to many people, many of us would have known about them and we would not need anyone to express them to anyone for us.”

A member of the Kwesi Botchwey Committee, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, recently reiterated the party’s stance that it will not release the report as it could spell doom for the NDC.

He maintained that, recent media reports serializing the supposed leaked document were just attempts by political opponents to force the NDC to release the full report, a tactic he says will not succeed.

However, Ricketts-Hagan expressed dissatisfaction with the secretive nature of the report, arguing that it was important for members of the party to know and learn from the mistakes that cost them the last elections.

He suggested that the recommendations that were made could be left out as they could be capitalized on by opposition parties.

“We have commissioned a report to be done, and most of us don’t know what’s in it. We have people going round with excerpts of the report trying to do reconciliation. I’m calling respectfully on the leadership of our party to reconsider and release the report especially before we go into the branch elections. So that we’ll be able to know what went wrong and we don’t repeat the mistakes.  They can take out the recommendations. I can understand that the recommendations in the hands of our opponents could be damaging  in the sense that it’s out of those that we’ll have our strategies,” he said.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Release Kwesi Botchwey report to party members – Ricketts-Hagan appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The former President has remained coy on whether he will run for the top office in 2020, stating on a number of platforms that he would like members of the NDC  to instead focus on the party reorganisation.

[contextly_sidebar id=”baAhNTO4TAg5ROeMdmTvKlwIMgsod98X”]However, a recent joint statement from all ten regional chairmen of the NDC brought his presidential aspirations under the spotlight again, as they appeared to back John Mahama to contest in 2020.

The statement from the Chairmen has not gone down well with some officials of the party and prompted the former President to issue a response reiterating his call on the party to focus on the efforts to mend the cracks within its fold, and strengthen its structures as it aims to recapture power in 2020.

However, the chairmen’s endorsement is just the latest in a number of public declarations of support for John Mahama.

Several persons including Ghana’s former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Victor Smith, and the party’s National Organizer, Kofi Adams, have stated that John Dramani Mahama is the party’s best hope for victory in 2020.

And according to Ricketts-Hagan, who served under Mahama as the Central Regional Minister, such pronouncements could breed disunity within the party and could negatively affect the level of support the former president could receive should he contest.

“This idea of some people showing that they love the former president more than others, I don’t get it. There may be some other motives behind this because we are going through some kind of restructuring and in the process, people are also restructuring with that. These things can be done, but you don’t have to do a press release. You can go to Mahama’s house or anyone else’s and encourage them that you think they’ll be a good candidate, even if you were sent by your people to deliver their sentiments,  you could do that behind closed doors. When you are done with the discussions you can go back to your region and report to the people that you have delivered their message and the man says he’s thinking about it,” he said on Citi FM‘s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday.

“Making these kinds of pronouncements and declarations don’t help our party. These things that people are doing, in the end, does not help John Mahama if he wants to come back, it rather hurts him. The [regional chairmen] shouldn’t have made it public, probably [other] people go and see him behind closed doors to talk to him to come back. With those who are potential aspirants, I’m sure they are not doing it on their own strengths, maybe people have been seeing them and telling them that they are good candidates.

Punish regional chairmen

There have been several calls from within the NDC for the ten regional chairmen to be sanctioned for their statement.

A member of the  NDC’s National Executive Committee (NEC), Kofi Kukubor, has asked the party’s Council of elders to take “swift action” against them.

NDC MP for South Dayi, Rockson Dafeamakpor, noted that “these regional Chairmen, who also are members of the National Executive Committee (NEC), have in a way sidelined, or will seek to sideline other potential contestants, and as the highest decision-making body of the party, they ought not to do that.”

The Wa West MP, Rashid Pelpuo, advised the Regional Chairmen to “play within the rules.”

“I am sure they are responding to the pressures from the grassroots, but they should be able to advise the grassroots so we can all do it in a decorous manner,” the MP suggested.

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Hasty endorsements could hurt Mahama’s ambitions – Ricketts-Hagan appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to the Legislator, the comparison between Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and the founders of the United Gold Coast Convention creates unnecessary tension.

[contextly_sidebar id=”3Vp5mh0mzKMexGVRtTaZBN4gcVsYa9x3″]”Nkrumah’s history cannot be taken away from him and I do not think Danquah’s can also be taken away but when we draw the kind of comparison that we do from time to time, we create an unnecessary tension in the country. We cannot say that 1957’s independence was actually gotten for us by Danquah.You cannot say that. You can talk about people who contributed but as I said with everything that happens in history there is a climax and many a time, it is the climax that we refer to but if you want to cherry pick, you pick somebody from 1947 and then you bring them to 1957, it sort of misconstrues the whole history. Let us put people where they belong in the history of Ghana. There are so many things that we need to spend our energies and time on.”

His comments come a day after Speaker of Parliament Prof Mike Oquaye underscored the need for the political history of the country to be told in its entirety.

Mr. Oquaye contended that even though the first President, Dr Nkrumah played a significant role in the struggle for independence from colonial rule, the contributions of others must not be overlooked.

Delivering the anniversary lecture for the Ghana; 60 years celebration, Prof Mike Oquaye said Ghana has founders and not a founder.

“Men and women inspired by love for country met in Saltpond to work for self governance and freedom from globalisation. I have great regard for Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as a great Ghanaian but the truth must be told. A recap of the chronology of events shows that before the arrival of Nkrumah, some gallant Ghanaians were taking steps to lead Ghana to independence. That is truism. People have regrettably asked how can we have more than one founder to such compatriots. I humbly lend them this advice. Foundership cannot be pursued in monopoly terms.”

This longstanding debate on Ghana’s founder was brought to the fore earlier in 2017 when President Nana Akufo-Addo’s speech delivered at Ghana’s 60th independence anniversary parade came under attack over what some said was a skewed account of Ghana’s history to suit his father, Edward Akufo-Addo and uncle, J.B. Danquah who were critical players in Ghana pre-independence.

Though some have argued that the President did not seek to downplay Nkrumah’s vital role that led to Ghana’s independence, others believe Nana Addo attempted changing Ghana’s history in favour of his father and uncle.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Nkrumah, Danquah debate unnecessary – Ricketts Hagan appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The New Patriotic Party’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo polled 53.22% in the presidential race in the region while the NDC’s John Mahama managed with 43.43%.

The region which is considered as a swing one has saw the NPP winning 19 out of the 23 parliamentary seat there.

Currently the NDC has tasked a committee to investigate the party’s abysmal performance in the polls.

But before the committee completes its work, Ricketts-Hagan while speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday said: “I was the Central Regional Minister, I take full responsibility.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”NkyRGDep8pgvJWB9ALG4EewPqQ9hggFa”]“You come into government to do the best that you can for your country, at the end of the day, the people decide and after the people decide we must all rally behind that. We go into opposition to learn from our mistakes. That is why we are doing all the reviews we are doing and to see what went wrong and to come back and become a better government in the future.”

“No one party will stay in party forever. So when you go to opposition, you are basically to take stock, and hopefully learn something from it. The same way the NPP did for eight years and now we are in opposition. It is possible that we could be back in four years,” he added.

Blame me for NDC’s loss

Mr. Ricketts-Hagan’s comment comes on the back of remark by former President Mahama who said he takes full responsibility for the NDC’s loss nationwide.

“Of course as the general who led us into battle, I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the election and so if it will satisfy those people, blame me for the loss.” He further charged members of the party to take advantage of the Prof. Botchway’s committee to express their grievances instead of the media. “I’ve been meeting with FEC and the elders; the chairman of the party is now the leader according to our constitution but all of us are members of the party. We’ve served at high level of government and so we have a role to play both as ex-president, ex vice president, as ministers of state and our fortunes are tied in with the party and we are committed members of the party so we must work to make sure that we put the party in a state where we are able to contribute to the progress of this country even in opposition by making sure that we provide the kind of opposition that safeguards the interest of the people.”

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post I take responsibility for NDC’s Central Region defeat –Ricketts-Hagan appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Mr. Ricketts-Hagan contends the economy is suffering from the New Patriotic Party’s scathing assessment when it was in opposition ahead of the 2016 elections.

[contextly_sidebar id=”NlfFVMBSD1lycOG8o1TtPmhL3OBOUrhn”]This has created the impression of an increased risk of doing business in Ghana, which inevitably affected the value of the cedi, he argued.

President Nana Akufo-Addo’s maiden State of the Nation address also painted a bleak picture of the country’s economic standing, as he highlighted unstable economic indicators, increasing debt and missed targets under the IMF programme.

But in a Citi News interview, Mr. Ricketts-Hagan urged government to stop speaking ill of the economy and scaring investors.

“The foreign exchange market does a lot of speculation therefore if you are talking down your economy then what you are doing is that, you are making the investors in our economy panic because if people don’t have confidence in your economy as it is being portrayed by you yourselves as a government then people who have invested here will begin to take their investment out.”

“By them taking their money in dollars and liquidating whatever assets they have here, they will use the cedis they receive here to buy dollars and repatriate them so it is indeed a factor,” he explained.

He also cautioned that this rhetoric fed negatively into the currency market and the credit rating markets.

“If you are talking down your economy, you have to be careful, and when we do it just to score partisan points by saying that previous government has done badly with the economy, you are not doing the country any favour… Recently you have heard the likes of Fitch thinking of possibly downgrading Ghana’s economy. These are all as a result of talking down the economy.”

Performance of cedi so far in 2017

The cedi commenced 2017 at GHc 4.2 on the interbank foreign exchange market.

Figures available to Citi Business News from the Bank of Ghana show that the cedi has depreciated by about 5.4 percent between January and February of this year alone on the interbank forex exchange market, and as much as 6.72 percent in the same period across forex bureaus in the country.

In the same period in 2016, the cedi performed better in forex bureaus across the country depreciating by only 2.5 percent.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post NPP’s negativity to blame for cedi depreciation – Ricketts-Hagan appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.