The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress Johnson Asiedu Nketia has defended the party’s decision to charge a staggering GHC400,000 filing fee for presidential aspirants.

According to him, the amount is to cater for the cost of running the polls in all 275 constituencies across the country.

Speaking to Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Friday, Mr. Nketia said the move is also to enable the candidates to exhibit their ability to raise funds since a nominee becomes the leader of the party once he becomes the candidate.

“We don’t expect them to cough this amount from their accounts, but they are the lead fundraisers for the party so they must prove their capability to raise funds for the party. The candidate becomes the leader of the party so he or she must show that they can raise funds for the party.

“I disagree with anyone who thinks that raising money to file nomination encourages corruption. If the system wants to discourage corruption then we must all talk about possible means of doing so”.

Meanwhile, the presidential aspirants have scheduled a meeting for today over the filing fee announced by the party.

According to one of the candidates Stephen Atubiga, the meeting was triggered out of their collective concerns over the staggering amount being charged for the contest by the party executives.

“All of us will be meeting, either we have a conference call or we gather somewhere and discuss the amount. Then we can meet the founder over it after our meeting. The money being put out there hasn’t made the party so attractive.

It distances people from the party. The concern is to ensure that we don’t discourage people from joining the party and hope to be President. Wanting to lead your party, money shouldn’t be a caveat.

We are planting a seed of corruption in peoples mind, that when we come to power and Atubiga is made a minister, he should steal money so he can contest if he wants to be President,” he said.