The founder and leader of the Independent People’s Party (IPP), Kofi Akpaloo received the shock of his life when the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana rejected his filing fees for his parliamentary candidates.
Akpaloo on Monday morning walked into the office of the Commission with a ‘Ghana Must Go’ bag full of money to pay the filing fees of the Parliamentary aspirants of his party.
Upon entry, Akpaloo then unzipped the ‘check-check’ bag and started bringing out bundles of cash to pay the fees for his 23 Parliamentary aspirants.
But this was rejected by the EC since according to the election regulatory body, only banker’s drafts were acceptable.
Interestingly, Mr Akpaloo produced a banker’s draft to pay his personal filing fee.
With the EC insisting on a banker’s draft for the parliamentary aspirants of IPP, an angry Akpaloo stormed out with a threat to sue the EC for rejecting his cash.
So far six presidential nominees have arrived at the EC headquarters in Accra to submit a GHC50,000 bankers’ draft each as their nomination fee.
First to arrive was the presidential nominee of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) Madam Akua Donkor, who was immediately followed by the nominee of the United Progressive Party (UPP) Akwasi Addai Odike. Adomonline.com’s Gershon Mortey reports that representatives of the NDC, NPP and an Independent candidate had arrived as at 10am.
The Electoral Commission had directed that Presidential and Parliamentary nominees for the 2016 elections submit the banker’s draft in respect of their filing fees to them not later than 12pm October 10, 2016.
The directive comes on the back of a court’s dismissal of a case by the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) seeking to stop the EC from charging the fees which it described as “arbitrary and astronomical”.
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