Attempts by some members of the Ghana National Council, GNC, election committee to postpone this year’s elections failed as the council voted to accept and close nominations on Sunday, November 3, 2019.
Instead of following the constitution of the council as has been the practice in the past, some of the committee members present did not take their responsibility seriously as they admitted that they did not even meet before coming to the meeting.
They however, hurriedly met for about five (5) minutes during the general meeting and came to propose that the elections must be postponed.
They explained that the current environment in the council is not conducive for elections.
Also, they mentioned that a supposed external audit of the council must take place before the elections are held.
During the deliberations, it became crystal to us that members of the election committee present, had their own agenda as they abdicated their constitutional mandate and decided to impose their personal political will on the council.
Their proposal was rejected outright by members of the council.
It appeared that the election committee members who made the decision to postpone the elections are a group of council members who have constituted themselves into an opposition to the current president, Paa Kwasi Sam.
Some members of the group had alleged that, the current President had not accounted for $9000.00 vendor fees collected from vendors from Ghana at this past Ghanafest.
The allegation turned out to be false as the money was directly wired into the GNC account.
Treasurer
During a report on the audit, it also became clear that the council didn’t do its homework before asking the audit committee to look for an auditor.
“As it stands now, the council does not know how much it would cost to audit the books and how far back the audit must go…As a matter of fact, the council does not know if it can afford an external audit as it was stated that yearly audit estimates range from 2500 to 5000 dollars.”
“This means that the council must pay about 15,000 to 30,000 for a six-year audit…
This is because some members are requesting the Ebenezer Antwi-Nsiah administration and even parts of John Henry’s administration should be audited alongside that of Paa Kwasi Sam.
“For an organization that has struggled financially for over thirty years and only made meaningful financial gains in the past three years under the current President, we think it is absurd to waste such an amount on an audit that does not even have a goal or an iota of proof of financial malfeasance.”
After situations quite down, the councilors voted to take nominations for the three positions available to be contested for.
The positions are, President, Treasurer and Sergeant-at-arm. The nominees are:
• President: The following were nominated: Paa Kwasi Sam, current President and Ebenezer Antwi-Nsiah, former President.
• Treasurer: Jeff Badu, current Treasurer and Evelyn Mensah, former Treasurer.
• Sergeant-At-Arm: Effah Amayaw, aka KKP.
Later, Ebenezer Antwi-Nsiah informed the council that he was not consulted before he was nominated so he recused himself from being a candidate. Evelyn Mensah, Former Treasurer, GNC.
As it stands now, the current President, Paa Kwasi Sam and Effah Ameyaw, are contesting unopposed.
Evelyn Mensah also indicated that she will not be contesting against her fellow Asanteman representative, Jeff Badu.
That will make Jeff Badu also unopposed if Evelyn officially decline her nomination later.
We observed that the GNC is in a state of grim due to some characters on the council! The Executives are human and might have made one or two mistakes.
Many a time they have taken responsibility for their shortcomings openly.
Those mistakes are however, not financial in nature.
The accusers do the same or similar things they accuse the current leadership with impunity.
“A member of the council would argue about divulging confidential information when the information he was talking about was public! Huh”
“Is it lack of understanding of procedures or just grandstanding? One would ask.”
”Also, having letters of invitation and sponsorship clearly does not amount to financial malfeasance unless it is proven that money exchanged hands.”
”After knowing the fact that money didn’t change hands, we thought members would let go but the usual speculations and aspersions to destroy others became the game of the day.”
“It is ironical that some of the same people who were admonishing the current leadership for lack of transparency were fighting against recordings at a public meeting of the council”
“We hope that the council members and the leadership understand the role they are supposed to play as leaders in the Ghanaian community.”
“We agree that members may have spirited discussions but insulting and calling each other names are not the behavior expected of our leaders.”
“Those regressive behaviors have resulted in the council being banned from their meeting venue recently and in the past driven away people who had genuine intentions of volunteering to serve their community.”
“If the recent ban of the council has not awaken members of the council,then we are not sure what would make them understand that they are destroying the once revered name and image of the august body.”
”We urge the new leadership to reach out in good faith to others on the council and appeal to those who have issues with the leadership to resolve them amicably.”
“We believe that most of the agitations are a result of lack of proper structures to handle certain issues on the council.”
“Going forward however, the council must put in place the necessary structures, as an ongoing restructuring process to prevent most of the occurrences that lead to problems in the council.”
“We wish the Ghana National Council and its affiliates well.”
Forward ever, backward never!
