Politicians will recoup their monies-Kwesi Pratt

The Editor in chief  of the Insight Newspaper Kwesi Pratt Jnr, has stated that the  extreme increment of filing fees set by the Electoral Commission  to be paid by presidential and parliamentary candidates in the upcoming December elections if not reviewed will serve as a grounds  for corrupt activities.                                

During an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting on Thursday, the Electoral Commission declared that parliamentary and presidential candidate ready to contest in this year’s election would have to pay GHS10,000 and GHS50,000 respectively to file their nomination by September 29 as deadline. The new fees set by the EC is a thousand percent increment as compared to previous election year fees.

According to Kwesi Pratt the EC’s budget is fully catered for by the tax payers money hence setting filing fee high is awkward and unacceptable 

“From what I know, the political parties pay the nomination fees of their candidates, only few candidates are able to pay for themselves.  Can you imagine 275 constituencies, and you tell parties such as APC, PNC, CPP and the rest to pay GHC 10,000 per parliamentary candidate and also pay GHC 50,000 for Presidential. If a party spends such huge amount of money and wins power, don’t you think the politicians will recoup their investments…and how are they going to recoup this investments. Already, there’s a discussion calling on government to subsidize activities of political parties, we’re not done with that, then all of a sudden the EC slaps this amount on the parties. I don’t think that this is acceptable at all.”

He reiterated “all the budget of the Electoral Commission is catered for with the tax payers money, not even a dime spent is raised by the EC itself, all they do is budgeted for and they receive the money. They even receive support from donors so what are they taking this monies for,” Kwesi Pratt questioned.

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Kwesi Pratt Jnr