The Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ms. Kathleen Addy has bemoaned the rising level of monetization in electoral process in the country.
Reacting to the news of allegations of voting buying in the just-ended New Patriotic Party Presidential Primaries on Saturday, November 4 2023, Ms Kathleen Addy decried the phenomenon and stated that the situation portends danger for the country’s democracy if not checked.
According to the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education, the worst part of the situation is its emerging justification from political actors in the country.
“For us, [NCCE] election monetization is very worrying and the beginning of the year, before we get to a very political year, the very first statement we released on 7th January we talk about the fact that election monetization is one of the threats we see for the democracy that we live in and a threat to our society we live in and also a threat to our way of life.
“We talked about it at the time because we wanted to raise concerns and get the public to think about what we can do as a society to expunge this unfortunate phenomenon from our society. One of the worst parts of the phenomena is the fact that in the past, people seemed to deny it but now people do it in the open and there is open distribution”.
Ms. Kathleen Addy
Furthermore, Ms. Addy, who until her elevation, served as the Deputy Chairperson in charge of Finance and Administration at the National Commission for Civic Education from 2017 to April 2022 expressed grave concern about the deeper involvement of citizens in the act of election monetization in the country.
According to her, there is a gradual effort by political actors to infiltrate the phenomena in the country’s democratic governance, a situation that requires urgent steps and measures by stakeholders to control it.
“There is active documented demand from the side of citizens as well as public justifications from the side of politicians. It is almost as if there is such a big push to normalize it to make it look like it is a normal path to democratic practice but is not. It is abnormal and it is unhealthy”.
Ms. Kathleen Addy
NCCE Commits To Raise Sustained Advocacy Against Election Monetization
Moreover, Ms Kathleen Addy, the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education stressed her outfit’s commitment to intensify campaign against the phenomena of election monetization which appears to have overshadowed Ghana’s democracy over the past years.
According to her, if the phenomena are not controlled or checked it will put Ghana’s democracy in jeopardy in a few years to come.
She thus admonished political actors, particularly political parties and candidates to desist from the act to avert the danger that portends the country.
Additionally, Ms. Kathleen Addy urged citizens to desist from engaging in election monetization as the phenomenon poses more danger to citizens.
“I doubt that if people insist that we are going to assess politicians based on the delivery of public goods politicians would insist that they don’t want such assessment because it must be very expensive for them”.
Ms. Kathleen Addy
Meanwhile, Kwesi Pratt Jr, Editor-in-Chief of the Insight Newspaper has alleged that the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia alone spent over GHS 100 million in the just-ended New Patriotic Party Presidential Primaries on Saturday, November 4 2023.
According to the veteran journalist, the New Patriotic Party’s Saturday, November, 4 National Delegates Conference is the most expensive political party’s primaries he has ever witnessed in the history of Ghana’s politics.
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