NDC Awaits Petition Over ‘Killer’ Filing Fees

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has indicated that it has not received any petition from some flagbearer aspirants seeking a further reduction in the filing fees.

There have been reports that six of the aspirants have petitioned the party’s Council of Elders again for the filing fees to be reduced further from GHC 300, 000 to GHC 100, 000.

There had earlier been agitations among some NDC flagbearer aspirants that the initial GHC 400,000 filing was unreasonably high.

Subsequently, they petitioned the Council of Elders, after which the filing fees were then reviewed downwards to GHC 300,000.

But, Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Peter Otukonor has told Citi News no such request for a further reduction has been submitted to the party executives.

“We are surprised because they know that those cost concerns we have discussed earlier which perhaps the council of elders share with them have not changed. So I don’t know if they are coming in to take some of the cost burden in terms of removing some of the cost centres in the budget or they are just making a vague petition.”

“As at now, the national secretariat has not received the petition and I don’t think we were even copied in the petition. We are just implementers of NEC’s decision so we are continuing with the process, he disclosed.

All the aspirants, aside from former President John Mahama, petitioned the party’s Council of Elders over the filing fees which they said was exorbitant.

As a result, the party embraced proposals from its Council of Elders by reducing the filing fee for aspirants seeking to contest the presidential primaries to GHc 300,000.

The Functional Executive Committee (FEC) acting on behalf of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, agreed to the amount and reviewed the guidelines for the primaries.

Female contestants were to pay GHc150, 000 while Persons With Disabilities shall pay an amount of GHc 100, 000.

After setting an initial date of January 19, the Council of Elders of the NDC extended the election of the flagbearer by a week.

So far, some six aspirants have officially picked forms for the flagbearer race in the NDC.

The list includes, Former President John Mahama, the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin; a former Trade Minister, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah and a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Adinam Mensah.

The rest are the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Professor Joshua Alabi and party stalwart, Goosie Tanoh.