The Electoral Commission (EC) is in a crunch meeting over a possible disqualification of the flagbearer of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) from the upcoming December 7 election for failing to submit his filing fee on time.
Joy News has gathered Ivor Greenstreet was unable to submit the bankers draft covering the filing fee at 12 noon, the deadline set by the Electoral Commission.
According to Joy News’ Joseph Ackah-Blay, the National Chairman of CPP, Dr Edmund Delle walked into the EC office two minutes before the deadline to explain why the party could not submit the banker’s draft.
It is not yet clear what reasons he gave for his party’s inability to submit the filing fees.
Ackah-Blay reported the EC Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, as saying she would no longer receive filing fees from any aspirant after the 12:00-noon deadline.
Per documents of the Commission only 14 out of the 17 parties that filed their nominations were successful in submitting their filing fees thereby completing one of the processes to compete in the upcoming election.
They are; Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), United Progressive Party (UPP), Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD), New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), and Progressive People’s Party (PPP).
The rest include; Great Consolidated People’s Party (GCPP), United Front Party (UFP), People’s National Convention (PNC), All People’s Congress (APC), National Democratic Party (NDP), and the Independent People’s Party (IPP).
The parties which were not able to submit their filing fees include the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and the United Development Systems Party (UDSP).
The CPP’s nomination is at the moment hanging pending the Commission’s decision.
Meanwhile, the PPP was not able to pay the filing fee for all the party’s 275 parliamentary candidates at the time of submission of the banker’s draft. The party paid for only 170 nominees across the country.
Explaining the issue to Joy News, PPP General Secretary, Murtala Mohammed said the party would have wished to pay for all the candidates, but it was challenged financially to do so.
Nonetheless, he said the party has directed all the affected candidates to pay for the money in their various districts if they are in the capacity to do that.
-myjoyonline