The Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has expressed the party’s willingness to participate in Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meetings should the committee return the party to its original purpose.
During an appearance on PM Express on JoyNews, Mr. Nketia emphasized that, from the NDC’s perspective, IPAC currently holds no significance, as the Electoral Commission appears unresponsive to the input and advice provided by the committee.
“The political parties that have been attending IPAC, are they not the ones who are joining us now in court against what the Electoral Commission has done? They went to IPAC, learned about what to do with this voter’s registration and everything they decided upon, the Electoral Commission came out to announce the opposite.”
“Everything you do, there must be an objective, there must be a motive. If the motive behind IPAC is for us to go and seek consensus, and you have come to the conclusion that consensus cannot be sought at the IPAC, you are wasting your time going to sit there,” Mr Nketia said.
He stated that if the Electoral Commission is willing to restore IPAC to its role as a consensus-building forum, the NDC will not hesitate to participate in meetings and actively contribute to discussions aimed at improving the governance of Ghana.
“If you are calling us to school, it means we are going to study. If you go to school and then you don’t study anything, would you continue going there and your parents be paying the school fees? No. That’s the reason why IPAC was established. So let us go back and use the IPAC to be building the consensus. But if IPAC is not going to be used to build consensus, then that meeting is not IPAC.”
Since March 2020, the NDC has refrained from participating in IPAC meetings due to concerns it raised about the Electoral Commission’s conduct.
Conversely, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has extended an appeal to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to rejoin the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC).
Evans Nimako, the Director of Research and Elections at the NPP, emphasized the importance of the opposition party’s return to IPAC. He stressed that this move would ensure the NDC’s representation in decisions that are relevant to all stakeholders.
“IPAC has been meeting; the New Patriotic Party has always been honouring invitations from the EC. We cannot force other parties to come or not to come, but if you check from the EC you realise that anytime IPAC has been held the party has enquired about the steps the EC has taken to invite the NDC.
“If you look at the current CI, the 91, it says that the EC must conduct continuous registration and it says also that there must be a modality committee and that committee has been formed at IPAC. We expected NDC to be part, to be around so that we can all discuss issues that will take onboard the interest of all stakeholders and this they’ve reneged. So we’ll rather continue to call on them to come back to IPAC for all parties to discuss,” he said.