The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has appealed to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to investigate the sources of monies allegedly shared by public office holders to voters.
This would bolster efforts to stem corruption-related offences within the electoral process.
The CDD-Ghana endorsed the OSP’s decision to investigate public officers alleged to have “shared monies” to voters to influence their decisions and cautioned that the phenomenon could get worse if urgent action were not taken.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Dr Kojo Pumpuni Asante, the director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement, CDD-Ghana, said the monetisation of Ghana’s electoral process must be tackled aggressively.
“It is not just about the money that they are sharing and the corruption. It is about where they get the money. As an OSP, he is also within his mandate to ensure that politically exposed persons are not using their positions of power for private gains,” he said.
Dr Asante was responding to the OSP’s arrest of Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, the CEO of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, on charges of distributing money to delegates ahead of the New Patriotic Party’s parliamentary primary in the Asante Akyem Central constituency in the Ashanti Region.
The OSP did not offer full details on why Nkansah was arrested on Wednesday, but the latter has been granted bail.
Dr Asante expressed concern that the distribution of monies and items to voters in a bid to compromise their choices had become open and pervasive in recent elections.
He said the practice undermined Ghana’s democratic project and cautioned that the country’s democracy “will not have any meaning” if the system was normalised for only resourceful persons to occupy leadership positions.
“I endorse the OSP’s effort in tackling and prioritising the issue because it is an existential threat, and it must be dealt with aggressively. People need to be prosecuted so that it can serve as a deterrent for those who are sharing the money and for those who are taking it,” Dr Asante said.
In a related development, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has expressed concern over what it described as the “deepening” of the culture of monetisation of politics as the country prepares for the 2024 General Election.
Addressing journalists at a news conference to mark the 2024 Constitution Day, which falls on 7 January, Kathleen Addy, the chairperson of the NCCE, described the vote-buying phenomenon as an existential threat to Ghana’s democracy.
“We are at a point where a major criterion for getting elected to public office is the candidates’ ability to dole out cash to voters. It is time to own up to this terrible practice and commit to ending it. If we do not end it, it will end us,” she said.
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