One of the flag bearer hopefuls of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, has welcomed the proposal by the party’s Council of Elders to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to slash the filing fee for flag bearer-aspirants by GHS100,000.

The Council of Elders made the proposal on Wednesday, 5 December 2018, which was subsequently accepted by the NEC.

The flag bearer-aspirants are now required to pay GHS320,000 as nomination and filing fees instead of the initial GHS420,000.

Also, the Elders suggested that the period for the picking of nomination forms should be extended to Saturday, 8 December 2018 while the presidential primary should be moved from 19 January 2019 to 26 January 2019.

Those proposals were also accepted by the NEC.

Almost all the aspirants were unhappy with the initial fees. They joined forces to petition the party’s founder Jerry John Rawlings as well as the Council of Elders, whose intervention led to the current changes.

Reacting to the changes, Mr Spio-Garbrah told Valentina Ofori-Afriyie, host of Class91.3FM’s 505 news analysis programme on Wednesday, 5 December 2018 that: “Any evidence that the Council of Elders have been consulted by the National Executive Committee is the objective of the whole exercise. That is to abide by the constitution of the NDC, which requires the National Executive Committee to consult the Council of Elders before coming up with regulations.

“So, there’s evidence that they’ve consulted, also, there is some evidence that some adjustments have been made to several aspects of the original proposals whether it is about nomination fees, filing fees, timetable for getting signatures for the elections and all that. These changes and adjustments are most welcome.”