Cocoa Season For NPP Delegates

While aspirants seeking election into various national positions in the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) are groining at the financial burden the extended date for the National Delegates Conference would have on their campaign budget, the story seems different for the about 5000 delegates who are counting their gains.

For the delegates, it is yet another ‘cocoa season’ to milk the aspirants whom they are hoping to see again during the extended period.

The National Council of elders of the party, on Tuesday rescheduled the date for the party’s national conference from March 1 to April 1, 2014.

But while the aspirants go back to the drawing board on what strategy to adopt during the extended period, information gathered by this paper indicate that the delegates are eagerly waiting for the aspirants to make their final impression on them.

Although the aspirants have welcomed the decision for the extension of the conference date they say it would greatly burden their campaign budget.

“You have budgeted for a period and all of a sudden there is a change of date. It comes with logistical and financial constraints,” Sammy Awuku, aspiring National Youth Organiser for the NPP told The Chronicle.

He noted that although they welcome the decision of the National Council, it comes with added cost to the aspirants who would have to do some re-strategizing and rethinking.

He explained that although he initially planned to end his campaign somewhere on the 20th or 25 of February, because he had toured all the regions, he would have to strategize for the extended period.

Aspiring General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong, however told The Chronicle that although the decision comes with some added cost, they have a solid strategy to make up for the extended period.

“It’s all about strategy, and anyone who wants to lead the party must have a solid strategy to work with,” he said.

Kwabena Agyepong had been a strong advocate for the party to reconnect with its roots by pushing for the party holding this year’s conference in the North.

When the elders of the party finally decided on Tamale in the North for the conference, Kwabena Agyepong told The Chronicle in an interview that the decision would help end the vile propaganda often spewed by functionaries of the National Democratic Congress that the NPP is an Akan party.

“I am so happy that we are reconnecting with our root because I believe the North was the foundation of our political tradition, the UP, and I think its a popular decision,” he said

He, together with his co-contender for the General Secretary slot, Yaw Buaben Asamoa, in a statement also congratulated the National Council of the Party, for its decision to “centralize” the Party’s Annual National Delegates Conference, saying “it is reflective of the concerns and aspirations of the mass membership and support base of the NPP”.

According to YB, the decision by the National Council to address the issue of funding a centralized National Annual Delegates Conference and other related issues, is indicative of how close they are in sync with the Party’s mass base and how determined they are to guide the Party through a successful congress.

But behind these expressions is the hard truth that campaign budgets have been overstretched and a strategy seems to be the way out, but for the delegates it is time for the harvest.