Acting Director of IT and Elections of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mahdi Gibril, has defended the party’s filing fees for its internal elections, arguing that the charges are necessary to finance the extensive logistical arrangements required to organise the electoral process.
Speaking to Arafat Musah on Morning Starr on Starr FM, Mahdi Gibril said the party incurs significant costs in conducting its constituency, regional and national elections, including expenses for printing ballot papers, securing venues and engaging electoral officials to oversee the process.
He explained that the filing fees form part of the party’s efforts to raise the resources needed to organise its elections independently rather than continually relying on external financial support.
“We are doing our constituency elections. Are you aware that we are going to be electoral commissioners to run the elections? We are going to print ballot papers. We are paying. Even venues that we are going to use, we pay,” he said.
Gibril stressed that the party must provide the necessary resources to ensure that its internal elections are properly organised, noting that the expenses go beyond the administrative process of receiving nomination forms.
“We pay for everything that you manage elections with,” he added.
He said the NDC’s approach was consistent with its reset agenda, which seeks to make the party more financially independent in managing its internal electoral activities.
He explained that the party wanted to move away from depending on contributions from individuals to finance its elections and instead establish a system through which it could generate the resources required to conduct the process.
“We want to go to reset. Moving from where we go out there to ask for people to contribute to manage our own elections. Now say that let’s be independent on our own to run our own elections,” he stated.
Mahdi Gibril further argued that the filing fees were not introduced to discourage party members from contesting for positions, but to help meet the financial demands associated with the electoral process.
He maintained that organising internal elections requires proper financial planning, particularly when the party has several levels of elections to conduct and must cater for the associated logistical costs.
Mr Gibril also disclosed that the filing fee for regional chairperson positions was GH¢50,000, compared with the GH¢100,000 cited for national-level positions during the interview.
He insisted that the party’s priority was to establish a system capable of financing and managing its elections effectively while giving aspirants the opportunity to contest for leadership positions.
Story By Pamela Quayson
