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The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described as 'untrue' comment that they charged GHC500,000 as filing fees for flagbearer aspirants some years ago.

The General Secretary of the opposition, National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a way to defend his party's decision to charge each presidential aspirant GHC400,000 as filing fees, said no one can describe the amount as outrageous especially when the NPP also collected GHC500,000 some time ago.

However, a statement signed by Richard Asante Yeboah, Deputy National Communications Director of the NPP said: "never in the history of the NPP has anything close to that amount been charged for primaries or any of our internal elections". 

"The statement by the NDC’s General Secretary, Aseidu Nketia, that the NPP charged ¢500,000 from flagbearer aspirants some four years ago is untrue and typical of the deliberate lies and propaganda approach of the NDC whenever they want to cover up an unacceptable deed.

According to him, "GHC420,000 for filing fees is unacceptable and can only mean a blatant attempt to skew the primary in favour of a particular person".

Per the statement, "it should be noted that on June 6th, 2014, towards the preparations for the last presidential primaries, the Nomination Fee, approved by the National Council, was Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS10,000.00) and the Filing Fee was Seventy-Five Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS75,000.00). A statement to that effect, signed by the then General Secretary, is available anywhere as a public document".

"We challenge the NDC’s General Secretary to prove this allegation or retract and apologise to the NPP and Ghanaians for attempting to justify and rationalize what is obviously an obnoxious way of monetizing internal contest and eliminating other contestants. Asiedu Nketia should also concentrate on how to rebuild his party to become the respectable opposition our democracy craves for".

The statement further indicated that "this hefty GHC420,000 demonstrates the need to be vigilant about the previous administration’s financial activities and its impact on the national treasury".