General News of Tuesday, 15 September 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

‘It’s too high’ - Ghanaians criticise GH¢100,000 presidential filing fee

File photo of an EC directional sign File photo of an EC directional sign

A section of the Ghanaian public has taken to social media to criticise the fee set by the Electoral Commission (EC) as the filing fee for the 2020 presidential candidates.

The EC on Monday, September 14, 2020, opened nominations for the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The nominations are to be filed from Monday, October 5, 2020, to Friday, October 9, 2020.

Presidential aspirants are expected to pay GH¢100,000 as filing fee, while the parliamentary candidates will have to part away with GH¢10,000 to file for nominations.

Since the announcement, some political commentators and governance think tanks have kicked against the fee set by the EC ahead of the December 7, 2020 polls.

The Center for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD-Ghana), has said the filing fee for the presidential candidates for the next election was “outrageous”.

Popular legal practitioner, Prof Kwaku Asare (Kwaku Azar) has said the fee set by the EC was illegal and discriminatory.



GhanaWeb has sampled the views of some social media users on the filing fee and found that the majority of the comments were critical.

“The EC has taken an agenda to exclude many parties from taking part of the electoral race this 2020. Presidential candidates filing fee is ghc100,000.00 and the parliamentary filing fee is ghc50000. Eiiii, this is a revenue generation institution,” one Twitter users said.

In 2016, the EC charged GH¢50,000 as filing fees for presidential candidates and GH¢10,000 for parliamentary aspirants.

Follow the reactions of some Ghanaians on Facebook and Twitter below.