NDC's GHS420k fee 'unacceptable'; 'blatant attempt to skew poll' – NPP

The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the opposition National Democratic Congress’ GHS420,000 nomination and filing fee for flag bearer aspirants as “unacceptable”.

In a statement to deny claims of the NDC’s General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia that the NPP, three years ago, charged GHS500,000 as filing fee, the NPP said the GHS420,000 “can only mean a blatant attempt to skew the primary in favour of a particular person.”

According to the party, the GHS500,000 claim by Mr Asiedu Nketia “is untrue and typical of the deliberate lies and propaganda approach of the NDC whenever they want to cover up an unacceptable deed”.

While justifying the opposition NDC’s GHS400,000 filing fee recently announced for flag bearer aspirants by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), Mr Nketia said: “The NPP three years ago was charging GHS500,000. We were all with you here in this country, did you complain?

“And three years on, we are charging GHS400,000 and you still say ours is too much? It is perfectly in line that you will charge filing fees to be able to pay for the activity that will elect the flag bearer, otherwise, the alternative will be to charge the party members across the board who are vulnerable.”

Responding to this claim, the NPP, in a statement signed by its Deputy Communication Director, Richard Asante Yeboah, said: “Never in the history of the NPP has anything close to that amount been charged for primaries or any of our internal elections.”

The statement said on 6 June 2014, towards the preparations for the party’s presidential primaries, the nomination fee approved by the National Council was GHS10,000 and the filing fee was GHS75,000.

The NPP has, therefore, challenged Mr Nketia to prove his allegation or retract and apologise to the governing party and Ghanaians for “attempting to justify and rationalise what is obviously an obnoxious way of monetising internal contests and eliminating other contestants.”