Filing Fee: Ours was Ghc75K, never Ghc500K – NPP slams 'lying' Nketia

The statement by the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) charged GHS500,000 from flag bearer aspirants as filing fee some three years ago “is untrue and typical of the deliberate lies and propaganda approach of the NDC whenever they want to cover up an unacceptable deed”, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said.

While justifying the opposition NDC’s Ghc400,000 filing fee recently announced for flag bearer aspirants by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), Mr Nketia said:

“The NPP three years ago was charging Ghc500,000. We were all with you here in this country, did you complain?"

“And three years on, we are charging Ghc400,000 and you still say ours is too much? It is perfectly in line that you will charge filing fees to be able to pay for the activity that will elect the flag bearer, otherwise, the alternative will be to charge the party members across the board who are vulnerable.”

Responding to this claim, the NPP, in a statement signed by its Deputy Communication Director, Richard Asante Yeboah, said:

“Never in the history of the NPP has anything close to that amount been charged for primaries or any of our internal elections.”

The statement said on 6 June 2014, towards the preparations for the party’s presidential primaries, the nomination fee approved by the National Council was Ghc10,000 and the filing fee was Ghc75,000.

The NPP has, therefore, challenged Mr Nketia to prove his allegation or retract and apologize to the governing party and Ghanaians for “attempting to justify and rationalize what is obviously an obnoxious way of monetizing internal contests and eliminating other contestants.”

The NPP said Ghc420,000 as filing fee is “unacceptable and can only mean a blatant attempt to skew the primary in favour of a particular person.”