If Ayariga wants to be there, we will accept him – IEA
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has confirmed to Citi News that it will allow the flagbearer of the People’s National Convention, Hassan Ayariga, to participate in the second Presidential Debate if he confirms his intentions to do so.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, a Researcher with the governance unit of the IEA, Ransford Gyampo said, “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.”
Mr. Ayariga announced he was pulling out of the debate on Monday because he was mourning the passing of the former Vice President of the Republic, Alhaji Aliu Mahama.
The IEA later indicated it was excluding the PNC flagbearer from the debate because he had bastardised the Presidential debate platform on several occasions.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) postponed the second and final of its Presidential Debates to Wednesday November 21, 2012 because of the declaration of a “five day national mourning period by the H.E. President for the late former Vice President, H.E. Alhaji Aliu Mahama.”
According to Ransford Gyampo, “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.”
“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,” Ransford Gyampo concluded.
Citinews/Ghana
