A deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Boamah Otukunor, says persons who are said to have publicly donated cash to pay for the filing fee of former president John Mahama, cannot serve on the yet-to-be-constituted electoral committees that will supervise the primaries.

Mr. Otokunor said this on Saturday, December 8, when some members of the campaign team for one of the aspirants, Augustus Tanoh, (GOOSIE2020), went to the party headquarters in Accra to pick up nomination forms for their candidate. 

Responding to a question on the constitution of the electoral committees, Peter Boamah Otukunor said members who would be appointed to the election committees will be without “blemish.”

“We are going to announce members of the electoral committee and I doubt if anybody who will make it to that committee will be somebody who had contributed money to support a particular candidate,' he stressed.

He, however, promised that leadership of the party “will act swiftly and immediately” to petitions pointing out any person who publicly contributed or supported a candidate but is on the election committee.

“it is up to you to be vigilant, when you see it and draw our attention as national executives, we will act quickly, perhaps we have not seen the list but because of your vigilance, you may see one or two [and] when you draw our attention we will act  immediately to address that problem,” Peter Boamah Otukunor assured.

The NDC through its General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, announced election guidelines which among others, set the cost of the presidential form at GHȼ20,000 and the filing fee at GHȼ400,000.

The guidelines sparked outrage among some aspirants who petitioned the party’s Council of Elders alleging bias on the party of some members of the National Executive Council and complaining that the filing fee did not resonate with the party’s values. 

The petition saw the intervention of the Council of Elders forcing the party to slash the filing fee to GHȼ 300,000 amid assurances that there will be no bias on the part of the party. 

In less than 24 hours after the fees were originally announced, some top officials holding sensitive positions in the current administration of the party claiming to have donated cash totalling ȼ420,000 to pay for the form and filing fee of John Mahama who is also seeking mandate of delegates to be retain as the party’s 2020 flag bearer.

The supposed list of donors included past appointees of former president Mahama as well as some minority members of Parliament.