It was a curious affair at the Electoral Commission Headquarters in Accra when the chairman of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) filed the nomination papers of its presidential candidate, Paa Kwesi Ndoum on deadline date today but curiously added the GH¢50,000 charged fee they disputed leading to a suit they filed at the Accra High Court.
Even more curiously, Electoral Commissioner, Charlotte Osei also received the endorsed papers and accepted the bankers draft attached when she had rejected those of Nana Addo and 11 other aspirants who had attempted to pay.
The situation took on a bizarre look when Mr. Hammond after tendering the nomination papers to Madam Osie turned round to demand the bankers draft of GH¢50,000 be returned to him but a defiant EC chairperson declined, pointing out to the PPP man, were they not the people who had placed an injunction of the procedures because they disputed the stipulated fees of GH¢50,000 and GH¢10,000 set for presidential and parliamentary hopefuls?.
It might look like a trap, especially when the Electoral Commission (EC) could be held in contempt of the court for receiving the filing fees when the court was yet to determine the case yet why the commissioner chose to receive the PPP’s draft when it had turned down the payment of the New Patriotic Party’s Nana Addo and 11 other hopefuls is bemusing.
According to emerging information, PPP’s Party Chairman who submitted the documents and the party’s National Organiser, who also serves as the party’s lawyer representing them in court over the filing fee issue miscommunicated leading to the error.
It appears the Nation Organiser only signaled to the Chairman to demand a return of the submitted sum, aware of the legal implications hence Mr. Hammond’s turnaround.
It remains to be seen how the PPP-EC affair will further pun out.
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