National Democratic Congress Presidential hopeful Stephen Atubiga has revealed that his colleague presidential aspirants have scheduled a meeting for Friday November 30, over the GHC400,000 filing fee announced by the party.
According to him, the meeting was triggered out of their collective concerns over the staggering amount being charged for the contest by the party executives.
Aside the filing fee, the hopefuls will have to cough out an amount of GHC20,000 to pick their forms to contest in the race scheduled for January 19,2019. The amount will however be halved for women and aspirants with physical disabilities.
Speaking to Starr News on the development, Mr. Atubiga said the fee is outrageous and does not reflect the values of the party.
“Tomorrow at 4pm all of us will be meeting, either we have a conference call or we gather somewhere and discuss the amount. Then we can meet the founder over it after our meeting. The money being put out there hasn’t made the party so attractive. It distances people from the party. The concern is to ensure that we don’t discourage people from joining the party and hope to be President. Wanting to lead your party, money shouldn’t be a caveat. We are planting a seed of corruption in peoples mind, that when we come to power and Atubiga is made a minister, he should steal money so he can contest if he wants to be President,” he said.
Meanwhile, the executive director of Social alliance and Justice Mensah Thompson has described the amount as absurd and immoral.
He said if the NDC goes ahead to charge the fee, they will not have any moral grounds to fight the NPP over corruption as it will justify the numerous corruption allegations leveled against them when they were in power.
“It will somehow justify the various corruption allegations against them when they were in power because how do you genuinely raise this money as a minister in this country? How much is the minister’s salary, how much is the President’s salary? This is discriminatory and absurd. If the NDC goes ahead with it Ghanaians will punish them”.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
