420K Fee: High cost of politics root of corruption – Professor Prempeh

The Executive Director of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, has said the GHS420,000 nomination and filing fees for flag bearer-aspirants of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) merely highlights the high cost of politics in Ghana.

Professor Prempeh holds the view that such huge costs have the tendency to lead to political corruption as candidates who win are likely to employ every means to recoup their “investment”.

The NDC, at its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Thursday, 29 November at the party’s headquarters in Accra, resolved that all male flag bearer-aspirants are to pay GHS400,000 as filing fee while female flag bearer-aspirants are to pay GHS200,000 and persons with disability aspiring to the same position are to pay GHS150,000.

The nomination forms are being sold at GHS20,000.

Critics, including some of the flag bearer aspirants, have slammed the exorbitant filing fee.

Commenting on the issue, the law professor told Moro Awudu on Class 91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Tuesday, 4 December 2018 that: “The cost of politics in this country, running from the primaries to the general elections is horrendous”.

He continued: “Obviously, these people making the expenditures are not doing so necessarily for the public good. It is an investment that they must recoup one way or the other. Their salaries, even if they win at all cannot make up for the cost”.

He emphasised that: “The very high cost of politics in this country is actually the root of our political corruption problem”.

In his view, “What the NDC has done is just being explicit about it”.

He express worry about “how parties are now bold that they can just say GHS400,000” as “entrance fee, the price of admission … is not that much”.