Director of Electoral Services of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Serebour Quaicoe has dismissed concerns that the GHS100, 000 fee the commission is set to charge for the filing of Presidential nominations is too exorbitant for the Presidential aspirants to pay.
Speaking on PM Express on JoyNews TV, Dr Quaicoe described it as “challenging” to him if a Presidential Aspirant is unable to mobilize such amount of money to contest for the General Elections.
According to him, persons seeking to steer the affairs of the state should be capable of mobilizing resources needed to run their campaigns including paying for the filing fees.
He argued that the filing fees must not necessarily be paid from Aspirants’ own coffers as a result they should be able to raise the said amount and pay for the filing of nomination even if they do not have such amount of money.
“If you want to be President of Ghana, you should be somebody who can be able to mobilise resources. The money should not come from one person. So for me, I think that if you want to run the affairs of the country and you are not able to organize 100, 000 to contest an election then there is a challenge,” he said.
Dr. Quaicoe also dismissed accusations that the EC is taking advantage of the elections to exploit Aspirants stating that the amount is just a deposit and will be refunded to candidates who secure the threshold of 25 percent of total valid votes in the elections.
“You are going to contest to win. The intention of contesting is to win and if you are to win, it means you are going to get more than 50 percent. So if you get more than 50 percent to win the elections, your money will be paid to you. If you don’t get 25 percent then it is paid into the consolidated fund and that is where the money goes in to fund elections and the rest,” he stated.
His remarks follow public outrage over the 100 percent hike in the filing fees for Presidential Aspirants for the 2020 elections.
The Electoral Commission (EC) at its Let the Citizens Know Series on Monday, September 14, 2020 announced the opening of nomination for the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections with GHS100, 000 set as filing fees for presidential candidates and 10,000 for parliamentary candidates.
This implies that the filing fee for presidential aspirants has been increased by 100 percent since the previous presidential filing fee was pegged at GHS50, 000.
This increment has been criticized by some opposition political parties and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). Senior Programs Officer for CDD-Ghana, Kwabena Aborampah Mensah has described it as outrageous while questioning the rationale behind the hike.
