John Mahama denies cracks in NDC

Vice-President John Dramani Mahama has denied claims that there are cracks in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), explaining rather that there were different shades of opinion and power centres in the party which are not peculiar to it.
He added that the NDC remained strong and that the government would work assiduously to deliver on its campaign promises.
Vice-President Mahama also disagreed with a suggestion by former President J. J. Rawlings that President J. E. A. Mills was not asserting himself to ensure that the government machinery moved in the proper direction.
Mr Mahama said although things seemed slow, especially with the appointment process, it was because the Mills administration was following the dictates of the Constitution.
“Things are slow. Some of the things are moving in the wrong direction and this has allowed some characters around him to take advantage of the situation to do things they are not supposed to do,” the former President had said.
The two addressed the press separately in Accra during the first National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the NDC after it won the 2008 elections. They had to leave the meeting midway because they had to attend pressing engagements.
The meeting, which was held behind closed doors, brought together the leadership of the party throughout the country.
The Vice-President said things seemed slow because of the high expectations of the people and that most of the procedures for taking certain decisions and appointments by the government had been prescribed by the Constitution and they must be followed.
“We must realise that we are working with a Constitution and people must also bear in mind that we are not in a coup d’etat era when people can be blanketly dismissed and replaced,” he said.
He cited the instance of the service commander who could not be appointed without prior consultation with the Council of State and added that “the Council of State was only recently sworn in and they have just approved the names of the service commanders and that within days their names will be announced”.
Mr Mahama said some para-statal institutions had been listed on the stock exchange, making the replacement of their chief executives not simply easy, adding that even with the rest the Mills administration would not want to go back to the era when chief executives were told to leave office en bloc and replaced.
He said the Constitution required that the government make appointments taking into consideration gender, regional balance and majority of such appointees from Parliament.
According to former President Rawlings, “President Mills is not providing the dynamic leadership that the people are demanding, such as calling the tunes and dictating the pace. Things are slow.”
On recent ministerial appointments, he said quite a number of them were good and had integrity “but others are mediocre. This is obvious and the people know them”.
He said the NDC was aware of those issues, it must be assertive and make its voice heard on all matters and “remind the people we have elected that they are not independent candidates but were elected on the platform of the NDC”.