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| Rawlings responding to cheers at the festival ground |
Former President, Jerry John Rawlings says President Mahama’s government will succeed only if members of the public help to expose the weaknesses in his government and offer concrete suggestions in fighting corruption.
Rawlings said he was aware of the fact that the government is confronted with a number of challenges including corruption and stated that the President concedes that all Ghanaians need to join hands in combating the problem.
President Rawlings who delivered the keynote address at the annual Deza Festival of the chiefs and people of Dzodze in the Volta Region on Saturday, said: “There is no point in voting for the President and government and sitting down waiting for Accra. You have an equal responsibility to help develop your country by refusing to sit on the fence doing nothing.”
Reforms in NDC
Touching on the NDC the former President, who is also the Founder of the party called for a review of the electoral college of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to make it more representative of the will of the people.
“The time has come to enlarge the electoral college of the NDC so a larger group of people which is better representative of various local communities, elect officers of the party including the flag bearer. Others may have initiated that method but we can do better and come up with a larger and more representative electoral college. We should have done that a long time ago”.
“Those of our officers and executives with integrity must support reform and should have nothing to fear. Let us not do anything to undermine the attempt to hand the party back to the people. To do so will be risking the life of the NDC.”
Mr. Rawlings, who virtually turned the durbar ground into a party rally, said “NDC’s decision should not come from only 20,000 people…give us 150,000”.
“Maintain the 20,000 and see what will happen to you in this country in 2016”, Mr Rawlings warned and said: “Your victory will come from taking back your party… an expansion of the Electoral College, the voting power!”
