The Director of Elections of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo has said the GHS50,000 filing fee set by the Electoral Commission for presidential nominees running for this year’s election is OK.
At an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held in Accra on Thursday September 8, the EC announced that parliamentary candidates would have to pay GHS10,000 to file their nomination while presidential candidates are expected to part with GHS50,000.
Smaller political parties like the Convention People’s Party (CPP) have described the amount as exorbitant but speaking to Class News’ Kwesi Parker-Wilson, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said any serious presidential candidate should be able to raise the amount.
He, however, said the GHS10,000 filing fee for parliamentary nominees was rather on the high side.
“The … GHS50,000 is OK. If you want to be a president, you should be able to pay GHS50,000. If you want to be president of the republic of Ghana, you should be resourceful enough to mobilise GHS50,000 for your filing fee. I have a problem with the parliamentary [fee]. They should take a second look at the parliamentary but for the presidential [it’s OK],” he stated.
Mr Ofosu-Ampofo denied claims that the NDC was comfortable with the amount because it has state resources at its disposal. “This is not because my party is in power. The NPP did not complain, the NPP is not in power but they did not complain. We the NDC are saying we can get 12.5 per cent of the vote and once we get 12.5 per cent of the vote, the law says that your filing fee should be refunded to you, so we pay in September and we are taking it back in January. It is not our decision, it is the electoral commission’s decision and there have been appeals that they should reconsider it, if they reconsider it, fine, it will reduce our budget, if they stick to it, the law says they determine filing fees, it is not the political parties that determine filing fees but if they review it downwards, it will be good for all of us,” he said.
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