The largest opposition party in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has on its political agenda, May 13, 2023 to hold presidential and parliamentary primaries. Knowing what this party is capable of, Ghanaians are praying that these elections will go on peacefully in the spirit of brotherliness.
Apart from the presidential aspirants being made to cough out over $42,500.00, sorry GH¢ 500,000.00, which does not relate to the NDC’s cry that times are hard and money is not in the system, there are one or two issues which need interrogation.
Before I express my opinion on the other matters, it is very pleasing to hear that after all, money is still in Ghana as the NDC has recently demonstrated.
With the presidential aspirants, each was made to buy nomination forms at GH¢50,000.00 (over $4,250.00) and pay filing fee of GH¢500,000.00 ($42,500.00). If I remember right, four gentlemen picked forms but only three returned them and paid the filing fee. That makes it that the NDC, just overnight bagged GH¢200,000.00 plus GH¢1,500,000.00, totalling GH¢1,700,000.00(over $144,500.00).
Enter the so-called poverty-stricken parliamentary aspirants, each was made to buy nomination forms at GH¢5,000.00 and filing fee of GH¢50,000.00, or GH¢55,000.00 ($4,680.00) in total. And a total of 872 persons have so far picked forms and paid the filing fees, making the NDC bag almost GH¢47,960,000.00or $4,078,038.00 to be precise.
So, today as we speak, the NDC who are proclaiming that all Ghanaians are poor, and are suffering just as all Ghanaians are, could just get 876 members of the party to voluntarily, without stress or force, without selling family land or cocoa farms, bring GH¢49,660,000.00 or almost $4,222,589.00, to the table.
The USD/GH¢, rate applied here is 1USD to GH¢11.76. If only 876 NDC members can just go under their pillows and bring out such an amount, then what amount of money will be gotten from 6,000 dye-in-the wool supporters, who will represent at less than0.1% of the total votes John Mahama had? That will be GH¢287,760,000,000.00 or over $24 billion.
Hei…Ghana is not a poor country after all, with the very poor people bringing out such monies. And we need just $3 billion from IMF to stay afloat, which the NDC can produce eight times that. Chai…. There is God.
Recently, the NDC national executives placed travel ban on all MPs and instructed that they should relocate and stay close to the Parliament House, in case they will be called to vote on delicate issues, they should only be a walk away from the House.Top on the targeted list were the approval of president’s nominees for ministerial and deputy ministerial appointments and justices for the Supreme Court.
According to the NDC, the current NPP government is bloated and so government can do without, ministers for Trade and Industry and Food and Agriculture.
Come Friday, March 24, 2023, the chamber of the House had august visitors in the persons of H.E. John Mahama and Chairman Asiedu Nketia, who used their presence to remind the NDC MPs, how to vote.
Everything went on well, except that some MPs still do not know how to vote, hence rejected ballots appeared. When the results were collated and declared, it came out that about thirty NDC MPs decided to vote with their conscience. So, in the end all the ministerial nominees and justices sailed through.
All hell broke loose and and that poured out of some NDC gurus including H.E. Mahama were very frightening.
Those MPs who betrayed the course of the party were traitors.
Those MPs will be, smoked out and made to lose their seats.
But was it not about two years ago, that Parliament voted to elect Speaker of the House? With 137/137/1, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) were hanging on all it members plus the Independent MP to beat the NDC by at least one vote. In the end NDC’s Alban Bagbin won with 138 votes.
It clearly meant that one or two NPP MPs voted against the Party’s choice of Prof. Mike Ocquaye. While the NPP went crestfallen, the NDC was full of praise for the two NPP MPs who voted based on conscience. So, how come, the NDC is not praising their thirty or so MPs who also voted on conscience? If to the NDC, those two NPP MPs were not traitors, then why call its MPs who voted the other way on March 24, traitors.
The NDC has decided to conduct forensic audit to fish out those who voted against the party’s direction and when found out, they will be made to lose their primaries.
This is what will hurt the NDC the most. For an MP to hang on in Parliament for eighteen months, knowing he or she will never come back again, thanks to the party, they can surely join the majority NPP and make the NDC irrelevant and unattractive to vote for, in 2024.
If an NDC MP is not returning, then the NDC party must not return. Having said that whenever the NDC constitutes the search operations, it must mistrust the obvious. Because, it may certainly not be those who look like elephants who voted for the NPP. More search and DNA must be done to find out those who actually relate any of the appointees by blood or by love.
With the NDC, Ghanaians, must mistrust the obvious..
Hon. Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
