A leading member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, will on Thursday, April 7, 2022, launch an NDC grassroots empowerment and self-financing project, dubbed the “NDC ahotↄ project”.
“Ahotↄ” which means “relief” in the Akan language, is a project aimed to lessen the burden on MPs, relieve local executives of the huge financial difficulties they face in running the party.
The launch will be held at the Ashaiman Constituency in the Greater Accra Region.
According to the project manager, the NDC Ahotɔ Project will be micro-businesses focusing on social events such as funerals, naming ceremonies, marriage ceremonies, durbars, political campaigns, and rallies which are mostly outdoor activities.
It is also expected to create a medium for the local party machinery to be financially self-sustaining through regular income streams to help support their ongoing initiatives and to also empower and reposition the NDC and make it battle ready for election 2024 and beyond.
In a statement, the project manager stated that former finance minister in the erstwhile NDC government of late Proff Evans Atta Mills, Dr. Duffour, makes it clear that the main aim of the Project is “geared towards setting up micro-businesses in all the 275 Constituencies in order to create the much needed, but currently unavailable local funding for the day-to-day running of the NDC party at the grassroots level.”
He noted that, the initiative is a direct response to the recommendations of a business feasibility studies commissioned by Dr. Duffuor, a former governor of the bank of Ghana and one of Ghana’s few business magnates which was carried out by a team across the country.
Again, it was to establish the most feasible and sustainable business idea capable of helping to finance the NDC party activities at the local level.
He bemoans the present situation where the responsibility of raising resources for grassroots activities of the NDC is either left in the hands of branch and constituency executives whose work for the party is purely voluntary affecting their personal businesses and families.
The situation, it said, are mostly left in the hands of sitting MPs who are also overwhelmed by financial demands of their constituents, which is not a sustainable way for financing a modern-day political organization.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor is therefore, sponsoring and financing all the 275 constituencies with all the equipment and accessories necessary to setup a rental business.
The nature of these activities place high demand on the use of Plastic Chairs, Canopies, Public address systems, power generators, podiums, mobile toilets etc. A local rental business of the accessories owned and run by the party at various constituency levels, will create employment opportunities and generate income which will bring relief (Ahotɔ) to the grassroots.
