President John Agyekum Kufuor on Wednesday officially opened the ruling New Patriotic Party's (NPP) Club House at Ridge in Accra and described it as a major landmark in the evolution of the Party.

Political parties, he said, lived through their Club Houses providing the rank and file with easy access to interact with Ministers, Members of Parliament (MPs) and party officials.

Parties are not just about organizing and campaigning to win elections, they must have social life, he held. Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, one of those seeking the NPP's mandate to lead the Party into the 2008 elections and his family, donated the property.

President Kufuor said the NPP, an offshoot of a tradition that was over 60 years old, with common humanity and fellow feeling as its underlying factor, cut across all levels of society.

The idea of the Club House would therefore bond them together to nurture and re-invigorate the ideology of the Party, he said, and thanked Mr Owusu-Agyemang and his family for the "grand gesture." Mr Bernard Joao da Rocha, a former National Chairman of the Party, said political parties with no social life had no fun. "As members of a political party, we should have social life."

He urged membership of the NPP to learn how to use the facility, saying they should not just go there to talk politics, but also use the atmosphere it provided to socialize, discuss matters of common concern, exchange ideas and hold informal meetings.

Mr Peter Mac-Manu, National Chairman, said the level of socialization and cross-fertilization of ideas between the leaders and the rank and file would help to grow the NPP.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang said the idea behind the gesture was to help engender the esprit de corps. Vice President Aliu Mahama and other Party's stalwarts attended the ceremony.


Source: GNA