Massive 'Vote Buying� In NDC Chairmanship Contest...

Information reaching the New Statesman indicates that the internal contests to select executives for the ruling National Democratic Congress are being greatly influenced by monetary and material inducements, with some concerned party members entertaining fears that some key positions could be grabbed by the �highest bidders� without any consideration for competence and loyalty to the party. The monetary and material inducements are said to have taken centre stage especially in the contests for the national and Greater Accra regional chairmanship positions. Manly Spain and Stephen Akwetey are seeking to unseat Joseph Ade Coker as the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the party and reports indicate that Mr Spain is doling out GHC1, 000 to each of the 34 constituency chairmen, ostensibly to buy their conscience to further his ambition of becoming the party�s chairman in the region. Some constituency chairmen of the NDC, who pleaded anonymity, alleged that in addition to paying the GHC1, 000 to them, the businessman-cum-boxing promoter, who owes lots of Cold Stores, is giving out other freebies, including fish, to women organisers as an inducement to woo them to vote for him. �What is going on is not good for our party; the monetary and material inducements are becoming too much and if it not checked early by the party leadership, it could spell doom for the party. We don�t have to allow anybody to buy the Greater Accra chairmanship with money; others have sacrificed to sustain the party and it would be politically suicidal to allow somebody to buy the votes of the delegates with freebies,� one worried chairman lamented. But Wisdom Doodo, a spokesperson for Mr Manly Spain, yesterday told the New Statesman Mr Manly Spain was only giving out money to support the activities of the various constituencies and not to entice them for their votes. �We don�t go to a chief�s house empty-handed and that is why he has been giving out the money to support the work of the party. The money is not meant for one person to use but to be used for party work,� he stressed when contacted to react to the claims against his candidate. On the allegations of sharing fish to the women organisers, Mr Doodo had this reaction: �It was Christmas period and if during the festivities you give out some cartons of chicken to women organisers, it is something one should say it was meant to buy their votes? He described those condemning Mr Spain as people who are not happy about his bid for the chairmanship. Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the NDC, Kwabena Adjei, who is facing stiff opposition to his re-election bid, last week expressed serious worries about the rate at which some contestants were influencing the party�s delegates through monetary and material inducements. Addressing party Cadres in Accra, Dr Adjei alleged some contestants were seeking to buy votes with bags of rice, cooking oil and student mattresses. He is being challenged for the NDC chairman position by the National Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation, Kofi Portuphy. The obviously worried NDC Chairman said there were �enemies� within the party who needed to be smoked out, adding that those people were bent on destroying the NDC�s resolve to win the 2016 elections. Also, Kwabena Adjei was reported by the Saturday, January 4, 2014 edition of the Daily Guide newspaper as having lamented what he described as �the dangerous level of corruption and greed among the current government appointees overseeing the affairs of the country.� According to the paper, Dr Adjei, who was speaking at the expanded Volta Regional Executive meeting in Ho, said the level of corruption and greed in the country could be described as the worst since the beginning of the Fourth Republic.