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The opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) has justified its resort to the National Peace Council to mediate and select the venue for the highly anticipated meeting between it and the ruling New Patriotic Party(NPP) over affiliated vigilante groups.

The NPP in its invitation letter said it was open to the broadening of the scope of the engagement and also left the choice of the venue to the NDC.

The National Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi said the deep-seated mistrust between the two parties requires an independent arbiter.

“It was important for us to involve the National Peace Council because you know of the deep-seated mistrust between the NDC and the NPP, if you leave this all-important issue to us chances are that it will be reduced to the usual NPP/NDC political football normally does not yield any positive results or meaningful outcomes for this country. And so it is important for us to attach seriousness to this process from the onset to the end.

He added: We felt that at least for our first meeting even if the facilitators we proposed i.e Civil Society Organizations, media, even if they can be excused, for now, we need a third independent party to mediate the process because the first meeting is always important meeting. It is at this meeting that the ground rules to this whole process will be set. I’m not sure the NPP will have any objection with the involvement of the National Peace Council in the first meeting we are all looking up to.