Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, a Presidential Aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Tuesday said the party needs a comprehensive re-branding to win the 2020 Presidential Election.
The Former Trade Minister identified marketing and communication as a major challenge to the NDC and urged the party’s electorates to elect Presidential Aspirants with proven track record to help wrestle power from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2020 General Elections.
Dr Spio-Garbrah stated during an interaction with journalists in Accra stressing that the corruption tag against the NDC contributed to the loss of in the 2016 election, which the party needed to adopt measures to support the re-branding agenda.
He noted that as part of measures to galvanize support for the re-branding, he was embarking on educating party communicators across the country as part of his campaign to win the presidential slot of the party.
He said he met about 58 NDC Communicators in the Ashanti Region, and shared, and rephrased some slogans and songs that could help present the NDC party as Non-corrupt to resonate with people.
“While these songs begin to resonate with the people, we can introduce them to our manifesto programmes and project,” he said.
Dr Spio-Garbrah said his personal image, as a politician without a record of corruption would endear himself and the NDC to many Ghanaians to give the party another shot at power.
The Former Minister said the current slogans of the NDC had outlived their meaning, although it was well known within and outside the party; the slogans needed to be changed to more attractive ones which would appeal to the populace and help expel the wrong tags labelled against the party.
He said the NPP employed similar marketing antics in the 2016 election to sell its ‘judicious’ policies and market its then Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as incorruptible.
Dr Spio-Garbrah said he would use his rich experience in marketing and communications, spanning from decades of working in financial, government and international institutions, to come up with good and attractive policies for the NDC.
He recalled that when Ghanaians opposed the introduction of the Value Added Tax (VAT), which led to the ‘Kumepreko’ and other demonstrations in the 1990s, the introduction had to be suspended.
Dr Spio-Garbrah said former President Jerry John Rawlings then tasked him as a Minister of Communications to lead a Public Education Committee to sell the idea of VAT to Ghanaians, which he did successfully, leading to the re-introduction of VAT.
He said it was the same skills he would employ to create a good image for the NDC and guarantee a victory for the party in the next election.
Dr Spio-Garbrah also served in different portfolios in the Rawlings and Mills Administrations. As a former Minister of Communications and Minister of Education, Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States of America (USA) and Mexico.
He is a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) based in London.
In 2006, Dr Spio-Garbrah lost the NDC contest to the then Professor John Evans Atta Mills and denied the suggestion that he did not even have a strong constituency or support base within and outside the NDC to make a mark in the flag-bearer race or the national election.
He said his support base cut across the youth, professional bodies, as well national and international bodies.
Dr Spio-Garbrah said should he win the flagbearer contest and get the mandate of Ghanaians to be President, his government would not shield any corrupt government official, no matter his relationship with the fellow and the fight against corruption would succeed only when the leader himself disciplined himself against it.
Other aspirants for the NDC flagbearer contest for the 2020 election are; former President John Dramani Mahama; Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Bagbin; the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Professor Joshua Alabi; and the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Sylvester Mensah.
GNA