The Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhuyini, has called on political parties to find ways of appreciating and rewarding party faithful to discourage them from being induced financially during elections.
According to him, that is the only way to prevent vote-buying in Ghana’s politics.
“It is an ego thing and that is what I spoke about. Sometimes I agree that their loyalty might be because they (delegates) feel that is the time they can get rewarded. And I have also made the point at party meetings that, we need to have a system of rewarding such people. In the absence of a system of reward for such people, they will depend on the election of party leaders and MP aspirants to have their reward.”
The Tamale North legislator further warned political parties that, if parties fail to institute ways of rewarding stalwarts, they will continue to hold the party and aspirants to ransom during elections.
“I think we need to look at the system to reward our party members organising the party at the grassroots level so they don’t see the election of parliamentary candidates or regional or national executives as their window of opportunity to get rewarded. But as long as they don’t have any system of reward for them, they will continue to see this as a system of reward and recognition because it is the time that they are really worshipped, recognised and celebrated and if it is the only way they are recognised and celebrated, they will continue to blackmail and hold the party to ransom and we will continue to get the kind of results we are getting.”
Mr Suhuyini’s calls come on the back of a report released by CDD-Ghana’s Corruption Watch exposing vote-buying that characterized the governing New Patriotic Party’s recently held parliamentary primaries.
The CDD Ghana Corruption Watch exposed how some aspirants in the recently held NPP primaries allegedly influenced delegates using money and other items to garner votes.
The report highlighted how aspirants like the Deputy MASLOC CEO, Hajia Abibata Shani Mahama Zakaria, Deputy Procurement Officer at COCOBOD, Alhaji Umar Farouk Aliu Mahama, incumbent Member of Parliament for Kwesimintim Constituency, Joseph Mensah and the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), Dr Prince Hamid Armah.
It further captured how they allegedly influenced delegates.
CDD-Ghana in the first of a series of reports published findings from the Northern and Western Regions.
Source:Fiilafmonline/CitiNews
