Nana Ofori Owusu, National Chairman of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), has said that the Electoral Commission was not set up to be a money making organization and it is due to this that, they are fully funded by the government and as a result need to reverse the new filing fees.
His statement comes on the back of the increment in the filing fees for presidential aspirants which will see each of them paying Ghc100,000.
Speaking in an interview, Mr. Owusu said, with the current situation of the economy due to COVID 19, he was rather expecting the Electoral Commission to reduce the fees from 50,000 to 25,000 and from 10,000 to 5,000.
“This is at variance to the economic condition of Ghana right now. Here we are that post COVID 19, the devastating effect on Ghanaian economy is so much so that, government is giving 600 million as bailout to companies and industries that have collapsed. Are we saying the electoral commission is not part of Ghana’s economy and they are not recognizing the situation we are in, that we have stagnated growth in our economy? ”
Speaking on the justification by the electoral commission with regards to the increment, Mr. Owusu said the rational by the EC “cannot hold” and further asked if the EC was in the business of making money.
“Is the EC in the business of making money, whereby they will be looking at the time value of the cedi and all of that and will be able to extend the figure to us? The EC is not in the business of making money so this analysis goes against the very foundation from which they are set up to facilitate elections. They are not set up to make money so what do they care about the time value of money.”
Also commenting on the increment, the flag bearer, founder and leader of the All Peoples Party (APP), Hassan Ayariga, said the increment is not good for the country’s democracy and also does not encourage multi-party participation in the country’s form of political dispensation.
He further said that, the justification of the increment by the EC was over ruled and also revealed that, the APP had petitioned the Electoral Commission to “consider COVID 19 and the difficulty Ghanaians are going through in this pandemic to actually reduce the filing fee by 50 per cent.”
The Electoral Commission announced Ghc100,000 as filling fees for presidential candidates, a one hundred percent increment from the Ghc50,000 fee of 2016 and also announced a Ghc10,000 filing fee for parliamentary candidates
However, the commission on the other hand provided justification for the increment in the filling fees in this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Bossman Eric Asare argued that the increment is in tandem with the value of the currency and also said the commission was doing so to promote multi-party democracy.
