The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has admitted that his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) failed to fully comply with some of the COVID-19 preventive measures during its recently held parliamentary primaries.
He has, therefore, urged party members to be mindful of such protocols in their political activities going forward.
Some stakeholders, including the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), had accused the NPP of violating COVID-19 safety protocols during the exercise held on June 20, 2020.
Speaking after he was acclaimed as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2020 general election, Nana Akufo-Addo described the breach as regrettable and warned his followers not to repeat the violations again.
“This past weekend, our party came to the end of the processes that we have to go through to prepare for the elections in December to prepare for the primaries in Constituencies where we have sitting MPs. Unfortunately, in our enthusiasm and sheer unbridled joy, we broke some of the COVID-19 safety protocols. It should not happen again.”
The elections were held within the electoral areas to ensure social distancing and COVID-19 safety protocols, but reports from the grounds showed that there were large crowd gatherings at some of the polling centres.
In an earlier statement, the party had claimed that its ability to hold the elections in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic shows that life can return to normal amidst the execution of constitutional mandates.
“Day in day out, the New Patriotic Party continues to set new standards in confronting challenges with the development of our constitutional democracy. Indeed, we have demonstrated beyond doubt, that as a people, we can overcome the limitations this COVID-19 pandemic poses to our society and manage it in a manner that enables us to continue to carry out our constitutional privileges, economic activities and social lives,” portions of the statement from the NPP read.
