A flagbearer aspirant of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sylvester Mensah has said presenting again former President John Dramani Mahama could cost the party’s chances in the 2020 polls.
“When people have had a maximum stay of their welcome, you can tell from the reaction of people around them and so we have come to a situation where one would have expected some individuals not to even venture to contest” he said.
In an interview on Kasapa fm, he revealed that his decision to even step out to contest the flagbearership position of the party stems from the outcome of the Kwesi Botchwey report, which indicated certain flaws that led to their defeat in the 2016 elections.
“We have tried to understand the causes that led to that outcome. So the Professor Kwesi Botchwey committee report, which some of us read extensively, we understand exactly what happened and a host of others and clearly that is what informed my decision to contest”. he said.
Sylvester Mensah, who is the former Executive Director of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has called for change in the entire structure of the party, going into the 2020 general elections.
Meanwhile Presidential hopeful and Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, believes Sylvester Mensah is inexperienced and not well groomed to be president.
According to him, he [Sylvester Mensah] lacks the clout for the job, since he has not really and fully gone through the ranks but only observed from afar.
“He became Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance, he did very well, the record he left there is good, I went with him as minister for health to a number of international conferences and usually he will do his presentation before I do my presentation, to showcase Ghana`s health sector and that was year I got the best minister of the year 2012. So he is good but he is not up. There is something we call in life preparation; some people use the term grooming, some people use the term pupillage, you need to go through it, experiential learning, not the book learning” he added.
