By Politico staff writer
The Political Parties Registration Commission, PPRC has invited “elders and senior members” of the main opposition APC to a meeting today to discuss the “conduct of the Interim Transition Governance Committee” the body that has been running the affairs of the party following a High Court ruling on the eligibility of the former party executive in April this year.
The PPRC say the conduct of the ITGC “has not been complimentary to the well-being of the party”, noting that despite the commission’s best efforts “to call them to order” have proved futile. According to the PPRC, they have little or no oversight authority over the ITGC because “unfortunately they are not a regular organ of the party, they are a creation of the court”.
The PPRC intends to use today’s meeting to update the elders and other stakeholders of the party about the “unsavoury happenings in the IGTC”. Other units in the Election Management Body have been invited to the meeting where the party stakeholders will have the “opportunity to proffer suggestions, as to how…they could be of help to the process”.
This meeting is taking place against the backdrop of mutual recriminations among the two groups that constitute the IGTC. In an interview with Politico, Sulaiman Bumneh Kamara, the Publicity head of the IGTC accused Abdul Kargbo, the Secretary to the committee of running a parallel group thereby undermining the Chairman of ITGC, Alfred Peter Conteh. He said Kargbo has refused to cooperate with the chairman so that funds can be accessed from the party’s bank account for the committee to carry out its activities.
He also accused the PPRC chairman Abdulai Masiambay Bangura of supporting the emergence of a parallel administration within the 21 man committee and addressing Kargbo as National Secretary-General of the APC when there was at present no such a position.
Kamara said ‘’the old executive and the party’s leadership in parliament are the ones supporting Kargbo’s faction with the belief that they own the people. They are sending out wrong messages to party supporters that Conteh and his followers are being sponsored by the ruling party to destabilize the APC.
In his reaction, Kargbo accused the interim leader’s people of insincerity and claimed they continue to hinge on the party’s National Advisory Council’s one –third quorum which he said is non-existent at this material time.
He said it is impossible for him as Secretary to sign off monies from the party’s bank account on the directive of only seven members of the committee which according to him contravenes the court order.
Responding to accusations that they are working for the former executive, Kargbo countered: “They have clearly shown they are working for Sam Sumana’’.
Meanwhile a statement signed by the fourteen members of the ITGC faction to which Kargbo belongs, repeated the same allegations against the chairman of the ITCG and concluded that “all appointments made by chairman Conteh are illegal” and that “that all party members should cease cooperating with any form of illegal or unilateral activity organized by Conteh including his proposed registration of members”.
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