EC sets presidential filing fees at GH¢100,000

The Electoral Commission has set filing fees for presidential aspirants at GH¢100,000.

The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) Mrs Jean Mensa who announced this also said parliamentary aspirants would also have to pay GH¢10,000.

The cost of filing fees for presidential candidates, therefore, goes up by 100% while that of the parliamentary remains unchanged from the amount last set in 2016.

In the 2016 general elections, the fees for the Presidential aspirants was GHC 50,000.

The EC explained that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to limit human contact, aspirants can access the forms on the EC’s website.

Codes will be available to General Secretaries of all political parties as well as an independent candidate to grant them access from 6 pm on Monday, Jean Mensa said at a press conference.

“In our bid to ensure the security and integrity of the nomination process, each political party will be provided with a unique password to enable them to have access to the password-protected nomination forms via their political party folders, “she said.

Detailed guidelines for the filing of the nomination forms would be made available on the official website of the EC as well as an emergency contact number in case of assistance.

The EC said it would received the filled-out nomination forms for the presidential and parliamentary candidates from Monday, October 5 to Friday, October 9, 2020, between 9 am to 12 noon and 2pm to 5pm each day.

Usually the EC gives two days to parties to submit their nomination forms. But the EC has extended the process to five days to allow corrections. In the last elections, some aspirants were disqualified for errors in the nomination forms.

The EC said four copies of the nomination forms are to be submitted for each candidate.

The presidential forms would be submitted to the Chairperson of the EC who is the returning officer for the 2020 elections at the headquarters of the EC.

While the forms for parliamentary candidates are to be submitted to the returning officer to the constituency at the district office of the EC.

The number of persons permitted at the office during submission is limited to five persons for each candidate.

Political parties are entreated to contact the Director of Elections to arrange a day and time for submission to ensure orderliness.

Qualification for parliamentary elections.

Persons who want to seek parliamentary elections must be:

-Citizens of Ghana

-Qualified voters

-At least 21 years old

-Resident in or hails from a constituency the aspirant wishes to contest or has lived there for least five years out of 10years preceding the election.

-Paid relevant taxes or made satisfactory arrangements with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to pay.

Who cannot contest for parliament

The criteria of people who are not allowed to contest as follows:

-Persons who allegiance to any other country or hold the nationality of another country in addition to Ghana or if under any laws has been declared bankrupt and has not been discharged.

– People who are not of sound mind

-Convicts for treason, fraud, dishonesty or any offence against the state.

-Convicts for an offence punishable by death or sentence for not less than 10 years or offence in connection to an election.

-An aspirant disqualified by the report of a commission or committee of enquiry is declared to be incompetent to hold public office or while being in office he or she acquired assets unlawfully or defrauded the state or misused or abused the privileges of her office or wilfully acted in a manner prejudicial to the interest of the state and the findings has not been set aside on appeal or judicial review.

-Or under a sentence of death or sentence imposed by a court or he or she is disqualified by law for registering as a voter of disqualified as a candidate

– Also, a public servant of the Ghana Police Service, Prisons Service, Ghana Armed Forces, Judicial Service, Legal Service, Civil Service, Ghana Statistical Service, Audit Service, Parliamentary Service, Customs and Excise and Preventive Service, Ghana Immigration Service or Internal Revenue Service cannot contest.

Who qualifies to contest as president

People who meet the following criteria are eligible to contest:

-Citizens of Ghana by birth

-Registered voters

-Persons who are at least 40 years old

– A person who have paid taxes or made satisfactory arrangements with GRA to pay the taxes.

Who cannot be a presidential candidate

The following persons cannot contest:

-Persons who owe allegiance to another country other than Ghana or declared or adjudged bankrupt under any law in force in Ghana or has not been discharged

-A person of unsound mind

– A person detained as a criminal under any law in force in Ghana

– Convicts for treason or an offence involving the security of the state such as fraud, dishonesty etc.

-Convicts for offences punishable by death or by a sentence of not less than 10 years or offence connected with elections at any time.

– Persons found by a report of a commission or committee of enquiry to be incompetent to hold public office.

– A person who acquired wealth unlawfully or defrauded the state or wilfully acted in a manner prejudicial to the interest of the state and the findings have not been set aside on appeal or judicial review while serving as a public officer.

– Also, public servants of the Ghana Police Service, Prisons Service, Ghana Armed Forces, Judicial Service, Legal Service, Civil Service, Ghana Statistical Service, Audit Service, Parliamentary Service, Customs and Excise and Preventive Service, Ghana Immigration Service or Internal Revenue Service cannot contest.