A Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Prof Kwesi Jonah, has called on the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) to stop charging exorbitant filing fees for persons who want to contest in national elections.

According to him, the commission has consistently increased filing yearly after every election cycle and the amount they have been charging is outrageous.

Prof Kwesi Jonah, who made these remarks at an IDEG stakeholder engagement with youth leaders in Ghana on “Building National Consensus for Constitutional and Local Governance Reforms”, added that huge filing fees are an impediment to Ghana’s democratic process.

“My personal position is that the Electoral Commission exists to enhance people's participation in politics. Setting very high filing fees is an impediment to this participation.

“… there is absolutely no justification for the EC to be setting huge fees and they are increasing it after every election,” he said.

The academic clarified that the filing fees are returned to political parties that are able to get at least 12 per cent of the total vote cast in presidential and parliament elections.

However, only the two leading pollical parties in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) are mostly able to get the required amounts of vote for refunds.

This, he reiterated, discourages smaller political parties or independent candidates from participating in elections.

The stakeholder engagement heightened some reforms needed to enhance participation in governance, particularly at the local government level.

Some of the proposed reforms include the amendment of Article 55(3) to democratize local governance; the establishment of an independent Multiparty Democracy Commission (MDC) separate from the EC to register political parties, regulate their activities and print the technical and political support necessary for political parties to play their roles as principal actors in Ghana's democracy.

Other reforms include the creation of a Multiparty Democracy Fund (MDF) administered by the MDC to provide financial support for political parties and election candidates not only for the purpose al contesting elections but also for other activities such as policy research and Annual Policy Conferences to review party policies on Ghana's development and the adoption of a mixed member proportional representation (MMPR) system of election in local government.

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