Kweku Baako condemns 'moneycracy' in Ghana's politics, says it's corruption

Seasoned Journalist, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr has condemned the political culture in Ghana where party aspirants share money and items to electorates to buy their votes.

This culture is generally termed as 'moneycracy' and it found its way into the New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries which ended on Saturday, June 20, 2020.

The NPP primaries recorded over 100,000 delegates in various constituencies across the nation casting their votes for the Parliamentary aspirants they deem fit to represent them and the party in the House of Legislature.

The primaries were however characterized by incidents of vote-buying where some aspirants distributed huge sums of money and items like TV sets, bicycles and in other places gas cylinders to delegates in order to induce them.

Touching on the issue on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' on Wednesday, Kweku Baako bemoaned such practices stressing it allows corruption to fester in the country.

According to him, 'moneycracy' affects all stages of the country's elections from primaries to the general elections and therefore called on political players to desist from such attitude.

He reminded them of the implications of vote-buying emphasizing it's an unlawful activity in the nation.

"Basically, it is corruption of the political process and this corruption of the political process, party primaries will suffer it. Parliamentary contest, general elections, will suffer it. Presidential primaries, as well as the national one, will suffer it. In fact, generally, it's part and parcel of our political culture.''

He also noted that this money in politics cannot be solved at the party level alone because it has its roots way back from the time of Ghana's first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

To him, it will take a holistic and comprehensive approach to resolve this challenge.

"We cannot tackle what happens only at party primaries and solve this challenge. That's my argument. If we want to deal with this challenge, let's be very comprehensive and sincere, and honest about the phenomenon. Its roots and its dynamics and I'm saying if that is so, all the political parties, we all have questions to answer.

"There hasn't been that determined focused commitment to dealing with this thing because, in actual fact, we're all guilty and the truth is that we're all beneficiaries of this corruption of the political process; the seeds of which were sown way back," he told host Kwami Sefa Kayi.