The former Majority Leader has expressed concerns over what he describes as the commercialisation of the NPP's internal structures, stating that the party has been turned into a “money-making machine.”

Speaking on the findings of a fact-finding report on the party’s electoral performance in the Ashanti Region, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu noted that party members and supporters had raised concerns about the increasing monetisation of NPP’s internal elections.

“Observations coming from all the constituencies in Ashanti, 47 of them, and the people who were sent out interviewed-not only party officers (card-bearing party officers) but they went out there and spoke to supporters, sympathisers of the party and almost everybody that they spoke to with one voice indicated that we need to have a second look at the delegate system in the party," he said on JoyFM Top Story on Wednesday, February 26.

• Read also: NPP fact-finding report blames Akufo-Addo’s leadership, party structure and others for 2024 defeat

According to him, the current delegate system, which determines the selection of party executives and candidates, has been heavily influenced by money, leading to voter apathy and division within the party.

“The process has become overly monetised, and that has already led to apathy in the party. It needs a complete overhaul,” he stated.

He suggested that one of the key recommendations from the report was to expand voting rights to all registered NPP members instead of limiting the decision-making process to a select group of delegates.

“Some of them say that we should go further downstream and enable all NPP members to be part of the voting system in the party whether at the polling station level, area, constituency, regional or national.

"We should open it to everybody. It includes the parliamentary candidates and also the presidential candidates,” he explained.

Reflecting on the evolution of the delegate system, he noted that it initially involved offering basic incentives such as food and transportation allowances.

However, he lamented that it has now escalated into a full-blown vote-buying culture that undermines the party’s integrity.

"People think that what we are doing now is not serving the interest of the party, it’s causing divisions, it’s causing polarisation and people are taking undue advantage, turning the party structures into a money-making machine which is not good for the image of the party," he said.

His comment comes in the wake of a fact-finding report led by him which outlined the key factors behind the NPP’s electoral loss, particularly in its stronghold, the Ashanti Region.

The report identified multiple factors that contributed to the party’s poor performance, notably the leadership style of former President Nana Akufo-Addo, which was widely perceived as rigid, overly centralised, and dominated by close family members.

Concerns were also raised about the mode of selecting the party’s presidential, parliamentary, national, and regional executives.