Nduom can pay filing fees 100 times more - PPP tells EOCO

Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom can pay 100 times more of the GHS1.7million his Progressive People’s Party (PPP) paid as filing fees for his presidential nomination as well as that of his parliamentary aspirants in the 2016 presidential polls, PPP Policy Advisor Kofi Asamoah-Siaw has said.

“… Dr Nduom can pay this money twice, five times, 100 times…”, Mr Asamoah-Siaw said in an interview with Prince Minkah on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Monday, 24 October, adding that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), which is demanding to know the source of campaign funding for the PPP flag bearer and the flag bearer of the All People’s Congress (APC), Mr Hassan Ayariga, must rather go after businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome and reclaim the GHS51 million the highest court of the land has ruled he fraudulently got from the state as judgement debt, rather than “harassing” the two politicians.

“Look, this EOCO people, should do serious things. Woyome has taken our money and he’s gone away with it, you are not going to [chase after him] and you come to follow up [where Dr Nduom got his funding from]. …When did EOCO wake up for them to come and ask of sources for campaign funding? Are they in Ghana all this while? So, if I were the Director General [of EOCO], I won’t allow myself to be used to go and attack political opponents and harass them like that,” he said.

EOCO, in a letter to the two disqualified presidential nominees, demanded the source of the PPP’s GHS1.7million the Electoral Commission as filing fees for its presidential and parliamentary candidates. EOCO also wrote to Mr Ayariga to demand the source of $6 million which he said he had spent on his campaign vehicles for the December 2016 elections.

Responding to the letter, Mr Asamoah-Siaw accused EOCO and its boss of selectively applying the law. “The EOCO director has he never been in this country before when the PPP was asking that the EC had the responsibility to find out where political parties get their funding from? Where was he to come and write letters asking questions? The money came from the PPP. What is his problem? And the PPP are made up of human beings, some of whom have the money to pay that. What is he saying? That Dr Nduom doesn’t have that kind of money to pay the filing fee? What is GHS1.7million? So this joke should not be played on Ghanaians at all,” he said.

“Why didn’t they call NPP people? The money we paid for our parliamentary candidates was GHS1.7million. The NPP paid GHS2.8million for their presidential candidate and parliamentary candidates. The NDC paid GHS2.8 million for all their 275 parliamentary candidates and their presidential candidate. Hasn’t EOCO heard that that GHS2.8 million is more than GHS1.7m? So where is the selective application [of the law] coming from?

“In any case, are they the people supposed to investigate the source of campaign funding? It is the Electoral Commission, so, why EOCO? Why this harassment? If President Mahama knows he’s lost the election, he should leave quickly and go. … All these kangaroo activities and deliberate harassment and intimidation and so [must stop]. Look, we are not going to keep quiet. Dr Nduom is a multibillion dollar businessman; he has a bank, in fact not only in Ghana, [but] in the US, in Liberia, in Togo, Ivory Coast that are coming up, so why is this thing coming up all of a sudden?

“These EOCO people, I don’t understand them. …You see, they shouldn’t make themselves a laughing stock. The institution of EOCO is for the state, it’s not for NDC or President Mahama. Why? …Why is the EOCO Director General becoming a laughing stock? Nobody can force us to belong to a one-party state. …If they (NDC) want to stay in power forever, they should do the good things and the people of Ghana will vote for them. If they see defeat staring them in the face, what is this harassment tactics that they are deploying? If EOCO is minded to investigate sources of campaign funding, where did the NDC also get their GHS2.8m from? Where did NPP also get their GHS2.8m from? Why are you coming to ask the PPP and Ayariga and the rest? Why not NDC and President Mahama; why not Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP? This selective thing makes your organisation lose the confidence that the public must have in you to do a better job. This EOCO is for Ghana, not for NDC or President Mahama or anybody.”