High Cost Of Internal Elections Should Be Checked Among NPP, NDC

Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, has asked both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to rigorously review the cost of internal elections.

According to him, the large sums of money spent during these internal processes breed corruption.

In Ghana, it is the usual practice for both the party in power and those in opposition to spend heavily on campaigning and on the elections themselves.

Speaking at the post budget workshop in Koforidua over the weekend in the Eastern Region, Hon. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, said “the NPP and the NDC must do a serious introspection of this process that the two parties are engaged in” saying “it is not known in any established democracy”.

“If one is to be blunt, the parties spend too much on these elections. We need some corrections in what we do”, he noted.

Mr. Bonsu, who doubles as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs also congratulated the NDC for successfully electing their national executives.

Corruption must first be tackled within political party set-up – Spio

National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer hopeful, Ekwow Spio Garbrah, has urged political parties to put in place mechanisms to deal with financial malfeasance .

“Political parties in general, not just NDC, must have mechanisms with their own party that identifies miscreants, people who misbehave, especially people who misbehave with money,” he told Citi News.

This followed former President and fellow flagbearer hopeful, John Mahama, admitting that campaign funds and logistics for election 2016 were diverted, creating issues within the NDC.

Mr. Spio Garbrah said checking these diversions at the party level could have positive effects on governance.

“The party itself must have mechanisms for disciplining people who can be proven to have diverted party resources because the problem with corruption in Ghana is that it often begins in the party. When party executives misbehave and nothing happens to them, the same individuals often end up in government and then continue their misbehavior.”