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An aspiring National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, has suggested that political parties be allowed to establish businesses to fund their respective activities.
According to him, a major source of fund for the NPP has been dues payment, but it has been inadequate in meeting the party demands.
“Dues would not build the party,” Professor Ameyaw-Akumfi said in an interview hosted by Kofi Adoma Nwanwani on Angel FM’s Anɔpa Bɔfoɔ morning show.
Buttressing his point, he mentioned the failure of members including officials to honour the obligation of contributing their quota in a bid to generate funds for the party.
“I’ve heard a chairman who has confessed not paying dues for six years,” Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi who is a former Education Minister intimated.
That said, there have been calls for the state to fund the parties’ activities. According to some advocates, it will among other things, check tendencies of wealthy individuals to skew party policies to favour them rather than the larger group when they support a party financially, and also curb corruption.
Among such advocates is National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the General Secretary of the party. He opined that a proper legislation on how political parties and candidates should be funded will help the citizenry boldly hold the government accountable and check corruption in the country.
“When we take control over how political parties and candidates are funded, then we will begin to have a democracy that will have a buy-in of the marginalised groups; otherwise we are approaching a situation where democracy will be there in form but it has in effect been hijacked.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketiah made this observation during a round-table discussion on “Sustaining democracy in the context of erosion: Lessons from Europe and Africa” in Accra in April.
However, the onetime Member of Parliament for Techiman North, Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, believes that the state taking up the responsibility would further cripple the parties.
“State funding party activities does not suffice…It will not be enough” he claimed.
He argued that parties establishing enterprises managed by individuals would be the go-to source that will among others “cut down the over reliance on government appointees” for financial support.
“We [NPP] believe in entrepreneurship so establishing businesses should help,” said the educationist.
Meanwhile, the NPP treasurer, Mr. Abankwa Yeboah, revealed that MPs were the key contributors to their coffers.
According to him, moneys generated for the party shot up from GH₵5 million in the lead up to the 2016 elections to GH₵15 million towards 2020 elections.
“Filing fee for both the presidential and Primaries have amounted to 15,635,220 an increase in over 128 percent over 2015/2016 collections at the parliamentary primaries of 5,434,000” said the treasurer.
He made this revelation when he was giving account of the party’s finances during the annual National Delegates Conference held at the Heroes Park in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital.
He said the contribution of the MPs “remains one of our key revenue inflow channels” hence urged the representatives and MP hopefuls to continue to contribute more to the party.
