“As a political party NDC, we want to say that when institutions are strong the country gets stronger, it is true that parties often want institutions to be under the thumb for their own purposes, but we must resist that urge,” Mr Fifii Kwetey, General Secretary of the NDC, said.

Dr Kwaku Afriyie (middle) with the COP planning committee members after the inauguration. Photo. Ebo Gorman

The General Secretary made the call in Accra yesterday when leadership of the NDC paid a courtesy call on the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) as part of ef­forts to form partnerships with institutions to generate benefits to the development of the country.

“We are on a journey to meet a number of institutions and we actually started with the media because we believe the media’s role is so critical as far as the shaping of our democracy is concerned and also in terms of the progress we make as a coun­try,” he noted.

Mr Kwetey also noted that they needed to work together to ensure that institutions were stronger for the country’s develop­ment.

The General Secretary also stated that they needed to address the concerns of institutions increasingly becoming the appendages of political parties, especially the ruling party.

“We however feel there are concerns that need to be addressed and those con­cerns have to do with sad instances where there seem to be a desire to return to a culture where institutions increasingly be­come almost like appendages of a political party or especially a ruling party, we think we need to work towards ensuring that that does not happen anymore,” he stressed.

Mr Kwetey also noted that, the Central Bank which was supposed to be an inde­pendent body, at a point started to become the appendage to the ruling party, leading the country into its current economic situation.

Further, he said the Electoral Commis­sion, virtually by its conduct behaves as though it was an appendage of the ruling party in order to do what the party wants.

“For example we are talking about situations where we have to allow as many Ghanaians to register for an election, which is their constitutional responsibility and we have an electoral commission that simply decides.

“That we are going to restrict this thing to a district level in a nation that is made up of many rural communities, where they can travel for hours to get to the district capital in a situation where we are having an economic crisis which will suppress the rights of the citizens,” he added.

The President of GJA, Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfour, on his part, urged all political parties to support the media, protect freedom of speech and expression in the country.

He hinted that the GJA would come out with a code of conduct for media coverage of elections ahead of the 2024 election, and would need the parties’ input to do so.