Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), claims that excessive expenditure in internal party elections has undermined Ghana’s democratic process and that the country’s delegate system has become a major source of corruption.
He claimed that delegate politics has changed from being a democratic process to one that is greatly influenced by money when speaking on Ambassador TV.
“Now huge sums of money are paid to delegates,” he said.
He claims that studies have revealed that many candidates for parliament spend more money obtaining party nominations than they ultimately make throughout their four-year terms in office.
“The amount of money these people spend before they go to Parliament is more than all the salary they receive over four years,” he stated.
Mr. Nketiah contended that in order to finance these costly elections, politicians frequently look to commercial interests for financial support, and as a result, they end up owing their sponsors money.
Mr. Nketiah argued that politicians often seek financial backing from private interests to fund these expensive contests and later become indebted to those sponsors.
“Because the MPs are paying, people engaged in illicit businesses fund them, and when they come to power, they cannot criticize their sponsors,” he said.
Source:Mybrytfmonline.com/Joseph Asare
