The single mouthpiece of the Convention People’s Party in Parliament, Samia Nkrumah, has described as exorbitant filing fees announced by the party’s central committee for national executive positions.
The party is asking aspirants for the chairmanship position to pay 20,000 Ghana cedis while those aspiring for the vice chairmanship, treasurer and general secretary positions, will pay 15,000 Ghana cedis.
Aspirants for the position of national organizer will pay 5000. The party also pegged fees for regional chairpersons, vice chair, regional secretary and treasurer positions at 800, while all others are to pay 500. The Jomoro MP, and daughter of Ghana’s First President, who has expressed interest in contesting the party’s national chairmanship slot told Citi News, the fees must be reduced drastically.
“I think we need to do what is right with the way decisions are made in the party. Some of us have tried for the fees to be reduced and would wish to see them further down. I think I will urge many of our supporters to speak out against these high fees. It is time we do things very differently within our party. We need to appeal to young people because many of them will not be able to afford these exorbitant fees. We need more people to contest so we should be able to accept them” she said.
Samia also wants the fees to be rebated for prospective female aspirants to enable many of them to participate in the party’s activities.
“We know that most of our women have less economic capabilities and definitely we need more women to correct the imbalance in the political representation between men and women. Women make up more than fifty percent of our population and that is a good move by the two main parties and we would want to follow suit” she said.
But the National Chairman of the party, Ladi Nylander has explained to Citi News why he thinks the fees are reasonable. “The filing fee was something that was decided, debated and recommended by the Central Committee. So in its wisdom, I would imagine that the Central Committee thinks its right. Everybody will have something to say about the price of something”.
“Obviously, there are those who will think it’s too high. But it is the Central Committee that took this decision, so whether we like it or not, that is what we are all faced with and have to work with” he insisted.