We are not an electioneering machinery-Peace Council clarifies

Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC), Rev. Dr. Ernest Adu-Gyamfi has said that contrary to popular opinion that the Council is just mandated for election-related activities, their work goes beyond elections.
According to him, their mandate encompasses a lot of things including the mediating and negotiating role in conflict resolution.
He told YFM’s Akosua Hanson on the Y Leaderboard Series: “There are a lot of things that we do, that people hardly hear of. We are mediators so it is necessary to create certain neutrality and not be making too many comments. And so for most of the hotspots that you see in this country, we are there. And we are doing all the things to prevent violence. For this election, it is a whole machinery that is at work now and we do so many things”.
Furthering on the Council’s neutrality and how it affects their communication on certain issues, Dr. Adu-Gyamfi shared that often times their meticulous investigations into issues of national interests may make the Council appear too slow in the eyes of the public.
However, investigations and clarifications of issues are imperative for the Council to remain a neutral mediator as it has always been.
“You need to maintain neutrality to be a mediator. And so you will see that throughout the life of the Peace Council, at a point in time, people may say we belong to the NDC and at other times they say we belong to the NPP. It is a sense of neutrality that people get from us. So when there are some issues, people ask why they do not get the comment from us. If we throw out a comment it may make it difficult to negotiate or mediate so we are very careful.
The second thing is to ascertain the facts and the truth about an issue before we start talking. If we don’t have the facts, we will not say anything so we have teams that analyze situations before we speak to the issues. By the time we get to the board, we have clarity and that can take time”.
Dr. Adu-Gyamfi emphasized, “Until we have all the facts and we have clarity, we will not say anything. You may go out to condemn a party when it may not be the case at all. Those are the reasons why sometimes we appear to be slow”.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah