General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress Johnson Asiedu Nketia has defended the party’s decision to charge a staggering GHC400,000 filing fee for presidential aspirants.
According to him, the amount is to cater for the cost of running the polls in all 275 constituencies across the country.
Speaking on in an interview on Accra based radio station, Mr. Nketia said the move is also to enable the candidates to exhibit their ability to raise funds since a nominee becomes leader of the party once he becomes the candidate.
“We don’t expect them to cough this amount from their accounts, but they are the lead fundraisers for the party so they must prove their capability to raise funds for the party. The candidate becomes the leader of the party so he or she must show that they can raise funds for the party.
“I disagree with anyone who thinks that raising money to file nomination encourages corruption. If the system wants to discourage corruption then we must all talk about possible means of doing so”.
Meanwhile, the presidential aspirants have scheduled a meeting for today over the filing fee announced by the party.