NPP Director of fundraising Ken Ofori-Atta says the game-changing factor that will determine the winner of the 2016 general elections is not money but the favour of the Lord.

The co-founder of Databank told Joy FM's Super Morning Show Monday that although the main opposition party has "a difficult time to raise money", he is not particularly bothered.

Photo: NPP Presidential candidate John Kufuor during 2004 re-election campaign

"I am not really moved by that because I think there is a certain spirit moving through the nation for change and that trumps it all," he observed.

Drawing from his experience on several campaign trails, Ken Ofori-Atta explained that elections are won on three factors - message, machinery and money.

"I think there is a fourth component that is whether the Lord is anointing this thing or not".

The overwhelming number of supporters at the NPP's manifesto launch two weeks ago, he said, is a testament that the party is not cash strapped.  He said for a party supposedly in financial struggles, the crowd at the Accra International Trade Fair Center was a gratifying sign that God is on the NPP's side.

"If it is a broke party then, it means the Lord's hand is in it and we doing extremely well," he said. 

He admitted that fund-raising capacity of the party was "certainly" greater when the NPP was in government between 2001 to 2008.

To help the party oil its election machinery, the NPP has resorted to innovative fund-raising initiatives like the Nana Addo scratch card for mobile phone credit.

The scratch card option allows a person to donate half the face value of the scratch card to the campaign.

There is also an NPP fundraising app which individuals can download and also contribute to the campaign. He said this is especially an important tool for Ghanaians in the Diaspora because they can support the party from anywhere in the world.

The latest fund-raising initiative, he said, is the 'Adopt-a-polling-station' strategy that is rallying Ghanaians who believe in change to contribute at the grassroots level.

He said civic-minded Ghanaians can help by paying for items and logistics needed on election day. They could buy food for polling agents, volunteer their vehicle to move supplies to the polling station or donate some GHC500.

The investment guru and back-room politician said this initiative is premised on the belief that the elections are determined at the polling station.

It is inspired by the Supreme Court ruling during the NPP's legal challenge of the results of the 2012 presidential elections. The judges were "loud and clear that the polling station was the one unit that determines the outcome of the elections".

All these funding initiatives are coordinated by a fully-resourced fundraising office at the NPP headquarters, he said.

Ken Ofori-Atta said he is especially pleased that through little contributions, ordinary Ghanaians can become shareholders in the NPP 2016 campaign. It means the next NPP government will not be held "hostage by a few contributors" with big money.

"If you democratise the way in which you raise money, you are immediately responsible to the average citizen so when you sit in a cabinet meeting, it is about those citizens," he stressed

But downplaying the influence of money, Ken Ofori-Atta said money is not the end-all and be-all in a campaign. 

"I think there is a fourth component [for winning an election] that is whether the Lord is anointing this thing or not", he said.

His example is the Nigerian election in which despite the massive financial resources of the governing People's Democratic Party, president Goodluck Jonathan still lost the elections.

"When it's time, it's time," he said.

 

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