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Three civil society organisations have cited the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) for abusing its incumbency towards the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections. The organisations, the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), alleged that the NDC was using state resources for campaigning ahead of the December general election. They also accused the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies of allowing Members of Parliament (MPs) to hijack Common Fund projects as personal initiative and partisan gains. These concerns are contained in their first report on political activities on the Monitoring of Abuse of Incumbency Project in Ghana�s 2012 Election released in Accra yesterday. The report was supported by Star-Ghana, with funding from United Kingdom�s Department for International Development (DfID), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), European Union (EU) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) The project, which was launched on April 25, 2012, will span from February 2012 to January 2013. It is intended to monitor and expose the extent of both the ocurrence and variety of abuse of incumbency and pre-election political party corruption in Ghana as a tool for promoting clean and fair election in the upcoming 2012 election. The report drew attention to the growing practice of providing high value gifts to individuals, religious and traditional leaders, as well as some youth groups in the build-up to the 2012 general election. It said acts of providing such gifts could amount to �vote buying�� which could impact negatively on the integrity of elections and the legitimacy of governments. According to the report, read by the Executive Director of GII, Mr Vitus Azeem, a research conducted in the month of May and June, this year, by the civil society groups revealed that the NDC leadership had used incumbency to marshal for vote and support for election 2012. The research was conducted in one constituency each in five regions. The project areas were the Sunyani West Constituency in the Brong Ahafo Region, the Avenor-Ave Constituency in the Volta Region, the Ellembelle Constituency in the Western Region, the Cape Coast Constituency in the Central Region and the Abuakwa North Constituency in the Eastern Region. The report alleged that government officials were using public space and facilities other parties would ordinarily not have access to, in furtherance of their partisan political objectives. It mentioned for example that on May 2, 2012 at a Policy Fair in Sunyani, which was a state-sponsored event intended to showcase government policies and programmes, the Regional Minister, Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, and the Minister of Information, Mr Fritz Baffour, elaborated on the achievement of the NDC. ��These achievements were also showcased pictorially at the stands of the district and municipal assemblies in the region. The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister and the Minister of Information then asked the audience to vote for the NDC in the upcoming election,�� it said. The report again cited that on May 9, 2012 at Akatsi in the Volta Region, the District Chief Executive, Mr Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, turned a state-organised and sponsored programme into a campaign event when he presented 1000 dual desks to 32 basic schools in the district. ��The DCE, in his address to the recipients and the gathering, acknowledged that the dual desks were procured by the GETFund, and also indicated that it was part of the government�s Better Ghana Agenda,� the report said. According to the report on May 27, 2012, the Member of Parliament for Ellembelle Constituency and Deputy Minister of Energy, Mr Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah turned a public event into an NDC campaign event. The report said Mr Buah was the event to inaugurate a community shed he had built for the Bomoakpole community with his share of the Common Fund. However, Mr Buah has denied reports of abusing the power of encumbency. He said the community shed that was inaugurated was not funded from the District Assemblies Common Fund as the civil society organisations sought to portray and that the event was organised by the chiefs and people of the community where the shed was inaugurated. Mr Buah took an exception to the report by the three civil organisations and demanded an apology from them which he accused of having a political agenda. On why people sported in NDC party T-shirts at the inauguration ceremony, Mr Buah, who is also a Deputy Minister of Energy, stated that he had no control over the people who attended the ceremony and said there were others in NPP T-shirts at the functon. According to the report, the abuse of incumbency and electoral corruption eroded the legitimacy of government and political leadership which undermined free and fair competition for political power. The report said, in the month of May and June, 2012, the monitoring of news allocation to political parties by the Daily Graphic, the Ghanaian Times, the Spectator and Ghana Television (GTV) revealed that the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in terms of news distributions, received the highest total allocation of 41.6 per cent in May and 42.3 per cent in June. That, the report said, was followed by the NPP with a frequency slot of 26 per cent in May and 23 per cent in June. The Progressives People�s Party (PPP) received 10.6 per cent in May and 9.6 per cent in June with the Conventions People�s Party (CPP) getting a 13 per cent of news slot in May and 7.6 per cent in June, 2012. In terms of coverage of presidential candidates, the report said the NPP flag-bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, recorded the highest news share of 51 per cent, followed by PPP�s Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom with 22 per cent. On space allocation and news airtime, it said the overall data revealed that the NDC received the highest attention with 42.6 per cent media print space and 47 per cent airtime. The report urged state media houses and the National Media Commission (NMC) to fast-track the development of the rules governing the coverage of elections. That, it explained, would enable stakeholders to better measure the adherence to the constitutional dictates of Article 55 of the 1992 Constitution and promote fair access to state media resources. In his remarks, a former Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Mr Justice Emile Short, who chaired the function, underscored the need for the expansion of the state media to enable it to grant equal access to political parties and their presidential candidates.