The Executive Director of Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter for Transparency International, Madam Mary Awelana Addah, has called for national action against the growing monetization of elections in Ghana, describing it as a necessary action for the fight against corruption.

Known for her expertise in governance and anti-corruption policy, Madam Mary Addah acknowledged the numerous challenges that one is faced with in trying to channel a pathway to resolving issues of political monetization, especially when it comes to elections in Ghana.

She noted that the worsening nature of the issues surrounding monetization of elections through campaigns and how it usually results in political officeholders being subsumed in corrupt activities makes it an issue that needs critical attention.

“We need to all do something about this, and we need to do it as quickly as possible because the fight against corruption, I believe without a doubt at all, is incumbent on resolving the issue around political financing, particularly where monies come from, to ensure the prosecution of the various campaigns by the political parties and also by the various candidates.”
Madam Mary Awelana Addah, Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative.

She further noted that political monetization, or better still, monetization of elections, is usually seen in how political office seekers put in so much money in the prosecution of their campaigns.

She remarked that it has become the practice whereby these political office seekers will usually be financed by various sects of society. It could be financing from individuals or corporate entities, whether Ghanaian or non-Ghanaian

Madam Mary Addah, however, made the point that the root of these monies is usually not accounted for, given that there is not an adequate mechanism to check and exact accountability from those seeking to occupy offices that inadvertently take charge of the affairs of the country.

She further added that this issue is not peculiar to only Ghana but also seen in other African countries and other parts of the globe, albeit not necessarily the same pattern is observed across all nations.

“Transparency International has in this regard done a lot of extensive work collating information from across the globe, and I can say authoritatively that many countries in Africa and also across the globe have similar challenges but may vary in their manifestation.

“So, there is the development of a recommendation or recommendations that we believe all states should pay attention to when it comes to the fight against corruption, particularly tackling this monster of campaign financing.” – Madam Mary Awelana Addah, Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative.
Madam Mary Awelana Addah, Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative.

She also made the point that a linkage between campaign financing/election monetization and the issues of corruption has been established, and one cannot disregard how important it is for such monetization issues to be resolved.

Systems for Transparency and Accountability

The governance and anti-corruption policy expert called for the need to establish systems that can check the activities of political office seekers, especially how their campaigns are financed.

She is of the view that just as it happens in the United States of America and other parts of the world, there should be systems that can clearly determine the sources of donations for political office seekers, emphasizing that such will be crucial for ensuring transparency and exacting accountability.

She acknowledged the systems of Ghana’s Electoral Commission that require political parties to declare the sources of their finances for campaigns, stating that available information shows that the two main political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party, consistently declare their source of funding.

However, the Electoral Commission’s system, as she argued, is very inadequate to be able to ensure proper transparency and accountability, given that the system only focuses on the political parties.

“The fact that we do not have a clear regime in place to ensure that there is accountability for what people are giving us, and so we see a regime where the Electoral Commission is supposed to hold these parties accountable but not the candidates. So the gap remains there. Candidates take all the money from illicit and licit sources to prosecute various campaigns.” – Madam Mary Awelana Addah, Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative.
Madam Mary Awelana Addah, Executive Director, Ghana Integrity Initiative.

Madam Mary Addah further makes the point that the issues of monetization are becoming a threat to the electoral processes of the country.

She therefore called for Ghana to emulate the practices of other countries, such as the United States of America, where the citizen can be well informed of the sources of political office seekers’ campaign funds and the sums of money they receive from the said sources, arguing that such measures are necessary to make sure public officers serve the interests of this nation.