President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has condemned comments made by the Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited, Paul Adom Otchere, on the issue of vote-buying which allegedly occurred during the NPP primaries.

According to him, Mr Adom-Otchere’s justification and comparison of CSOs who pay resource persons to speak at events and the vote-buying which occurred during the election of the party’s flagbearer is baseless.

He revealed that the “two scenarios are different from paying anyone to vote”.

“Yesterday on Good Evening Ghana, my friend Paul Adom-Otchere suggested that many CSOs pay resource persons and others when they invite them to make important contributions, so they should not hypocritically conclude that small amounts of GHS 400 and GHS 300 paid to each of the 198,000 delegates by Dr. Bawumia and Kennedy Agyepong are bribes for votes but just transportation allowance. Well, I told him, I get paid when I am invited abroad to speak. When we organize events sometimes, we pay panelists.”
Franklin Cudjoe

Mr Cudjoe revealed that “voting is not a service rendered but a right exercised”. As such, Mr Adom-Otchere should not have roped in the instance of CSOs in the country.

“In any case if the money is pittance why give and why collect it? Perhaps all Ghanaians voting on Dec 7 should be given money then?”
Franklin Cudjoe

Meanwhile, Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Kathleen Addy, has expressed concern about the vote buying activity that allegedly took place at the recent presidential primaries of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

She revealed that vote buying can influence the judgment of citizens and influence their choice of candidates which is unhealthy for Ghana’s democracy.

“This new trend of money in our politics in the way in which we are seeing, cannot be healthy for our democracy. In the past, it used to be rumors, you know. You hear people whispering here and there but to think that 30 years into the fourth republic we have actually retrogressed to the point where we see open distribution, for whatever reason, it cannot be healthy for our democracy.”
Kathleen Addy

Madam Addy indicated that although politicians view voting buying as the best approach to capturing political power, it is an expensive and difficult way of retaining power.

She further explained that the move “may have the potential of diverting attention from important things because you are so busy looking for the money to be able to undertake this exercise [vote buying]”.

“So, to be honest, from the citizen’s point of view and the point of view of democracy- it is actually really troubling. Even from the politician’s point of view, I don’t see how this will suit their purpose.”
Kathleen Addy

NPP poised to investigate vote-buying claims

Elsewhere, the Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Haruna Mohammed, underscored that the party will probe vote-buying claims in the NPP presidential primaries.

He stated that the party is getting to know some of these claims of vote-buying due to media reports. To this end, he highlighted that party will “investigate the vote buying allegations at the appropriate time, and if sanctions are necessary, they will be implemented”.

“It [vote buying] would be brought to the attention of the party leadership and this would be weighed. We will weigh it to see the impact and also check against the guidelines that were issued by the presidential elections committee. If this was given to induce the people, then, this is a matter that the party would look at, but if this is given to support transport of this particular delegate, the party will also look at it.”
Haruna Mohammed

Furthermore, Mr Mohammed noted that although he has heard about claims of vote-buying in the party’s presidential primary, he cannot attest to the fact that the said monies were allocated to delegates to buy their conscience.