The Africa Centre for Parliamentary Affairs says the GHc10,000 filing fees set by the Electoral Commission (EC) for the 2016 parliamentary elections is bad for the growth of the country’s democracy.
The organization said the amount will prevent a lot of good aspirants from participating in the elections.
Parliamentary aspirants for the upcoming general elections are expected to pay GH¢ 10,000 as filling fees; the amount ten times what was charged for the 2012 general elections; GH¢1,000.
According to the executive Director of the Centre, Dr. Rasheed Dramani, parliamentary elections must not be reduced to whether one has money or not.
He told Citi News, “the increase in the filling fees for parliamentary candidates has a serious potential to affect very good people who have very good intentions yet they do not have resources.”
He added that, “this is going to be stifling democracy and further deepen the perception that our election slowly being determined by bank notes”.
The Electoral Commission (EC) had said it will soon meet to consider whether or not to review amounts it announced for filing fees for both presidential and parliamentary candidates for December’s elections. This follows a wave of bashing the EC received from some political parties for pegging presidential and parliamentary filing fees at GHc50, 000 and GHc10, 000 respectively; an amount they complained is too high.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana