Member of Parliament (MP) for the Zibilla constituency – Cletus Avoka, has called on the general public, especially members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to disregard the letter in circulation that, the Minority Leader in Parliament Haruna Iddrisu and his team have been reshuffled.
According to him, the letter signed by the General Secretary, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey purported to be coming from the party is false.
He further submitted that “Haruna, Mutaka are still in office until the Speaker announces otherwise on the floor of Parliament. We are on recess and the Speaker is not in town”, hence their decision through their petition which was signed by about 77 NDC MPs calling on the Party Leadership to suspend the alleged reshuffle “until such time, when consultation is fully carried out”.
At a News conference in Parliament on Thursday, January 26, 2023, Avoka described the said reshuffle as premature and appealed to the Council of Elders of the Party to call the leadership of the Party, emphasizing further that any intended change to the leadership in Parliament on the NDC side should take place after the impending Presidential and Parliamentary primaries.
He also appealed to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to suspend the exercise to forestall any trouble as they pledged their support for any new leadership to be agreed upon through consultative meetings as done in the past.
On his part, the MP for Asawase, Muntaka Mubarak Mohammed, said, “we recognize the new leaders but the timing is wrong since there is no prior proper consultation and “we’re not consulted”.
He also reiterated the fact that “the letter issued was not from the party”… further explaining that “there are three processes that have to be followed before”.
He went on to state that, it could be either the National Congress or National Executive Committee or at the Functioning Executive Committee or the Council of Elders of the Party…..as mentioned above,
“I’m a member of these bodies, and those that I’m not a member of, I do attend such meetings as an Observer, and at no point, the issue of reshuffle has come up for discussion”.
The MP for Bolgatanga East, Dominic Ayine, who spoke on “the principles of consultation” relied on article 55 clauses 4 and 5 to say, political parties exercising their rights must do so in line with democratic principles.
By Edzorna Francis Mensah