Dr. Bernard Okoe-Boye, the Minister of Health, has called for a dispassionate and honest discussion on political party funding and campaign financing.
According to him, the current dispensation makes room for corruption to thrive, and therefore urgent steps need to be taken to address the situation.
Dr. Okoe-Boye called for drastic changes in the financing of political parties, noting that transparency and accountability need to be the hallmark of operations in the country.
Touching on the campaign of John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Okoe-Boye wondered how the NDC candidate is able to fund his campaign.
He explained that while Dr. Bawumia’s role as a public servant allows him to enjoy benefits that he could use to fund his campaign, John Mahama, as an ex-president, does not have the luxury of multiple streams of income beyond what the government pays him.
“Dr. Bawumia, like myself, is a public servant, so he earns a monthly salary. As for John Mahama, he is not working because he is an ex-president. What he gets is the allocation made for him, which is less than $100,000 a month. So, how is he able to fund his political activities?
“There are businessmen who support the system. In the US, you hear weekly updates on campaign funds because they want to ensure transparency over campaign funds. In Ghana, politicians do things that require resources, and more often than not, the citizenry are only interested in the resources and not how they were acquired.
“Over the period, any law that gives room for you to give a job to someone with the capacity to support you is exploited because any rational human being will look at someone who has the capacity, go through the procedure, and ensure value for money,” he said.
Source: ghanaweb.com
