He said if Hassan Ayariga informs the institute of his intent to participate in the debate, the decision by the IEA to expel him will be rescinded.
"If he wants to be part again, we have never excluded him and so I don’t think it should be a problem for the IEA to have him on board again.” he explained.
Following the interment of the late former Vice President,Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Hassan Ayariga announced that he would not participate in the IEA Presidential debate which was initially scheduled on Tuesday, November 20.
He argued that if the debate is held, it will be an affront to the memory of the late former Vice and therefore pleaded with the IEA to postpone the debate in honour of the late former Vice, Alhaji Aliu Mahama. He also said he had taken ill and could not attend the debate.
The IEA initially pledged to hold the debate on Tuesday but later reconsidered their decision based on President John Mahama’s declaration of a five-day national mourning period for the late former Vice President. The IEA resolved to exclude the PNC flagbearer from the encounter but their decision was met by several reactions from the party officials.
The institute arrived at this decision because according to them, Mr. Ayariga had bastardized the platform of the IEA. Upon further consideration, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has rescheduled the debate to Wednesday, November 21, 2012 but the reschedule would not change their action against the PNC flagbearer.
However, Ransford Gyampo of the IEA has indicated that the institute is ready to reverse their decision if Mr. Ayariga confirms his intent to participate in the final round of the Presidential debate that will be held in Accra at the Banquet Hall of the State House.
He said, “It is unfortunate but we have dealt with this man and indeed all the presidential hopefuls for the past eight months or so and our relationship have been solid. They are free to always communicate with us. We worked with their representatives and we thought the appropriate thing he could have done was to have put whatever he wanted to do in writing or call our officers to discuss some of this issues with us. "It’s unfortunate he decided to go public to bastardise the platform that has been given him earlier and to say all manner of things and to say he was pulling out."
He added that “Nevertheless we’ve also heard again that he said he [Hassan Ayariga] wants to be part, we do not have a problem if he wants to be part of the debate but our earlier statement issued was based on what he said.”
Source: ADU GYAMFI AMEYAW
No comments:
Post a Comment